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PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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PHYSICAL 



GEOGRAPHY. 



%, MARY SOMERVILLE,(^^>^t^'^^/ 

AUTHOR OF "THE CONNECTION OF THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES;" 
" MECHANTSM OF THE HEAVENS." 



PHILADELPHIA: 
LEA AND BLANCHARD. 

1848. 



GBs4 

ST 



Qfft 

Mrs. Hennen Jennings 
April 26, 1933 






SIR JOHN F. W. HER8CHEL, BAUT., K.H., 

&c. &c. 

Dear Sir John, 

I AVAIL myself with pleasure of your permission to dedicate my 
book to you, as it gives me an opportunity of expressing my admira- 
tion of your talents, and my sincere estimation of your friendship. 

I remain, with great regard. 
Yours truly, 

Mary Somervili.e. 

London, 29th February, 1848. 



'Hi 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
Geology . ..... . . Page 13 

CHAPTER H. 

Form of the Great Continent — The High Lands of the Great Continent : the 
Atlas, Spanish, French, and German Mountains — The Alps, Balkan, and 
Apennines . . . . . ... .33 

CHAPTER m. 

The High Lands of the Great Continent (conti7iued) — The Caacasus — 'J'he 
Western Asiatic Table-land and its Mountains . . .47 

CHAPTER IV. 

The High Lands of the Great Continent (continued) — The Oriental Table- 
land and its Mountains . . . . . .52 

CHAPTER V. 

Secondary Mountain Systems of the Great Continent — That of Scandinavia 
— Great Britain and Ireland — The Ural Mountains — The Great Northern 
Plain . . ... . . . 6i 



CONTENTS. 



(JHAPTICR VI. 



'J'he Southern Low l,urijs of the Great Continent, wirh their Secondary 
Table-lands and Mountains . . • . . .72 



CHAPTER Vn. 

Africa : Table-land — Cape of Good Hope and Eastern Coast — Western 
Coast — Abyssinia — Senegambia — Low T^ands and Deserts . .80 



CHAPTER VHL 

American Continent — The Mountains of South America— The Andes — The 
Mountains of the Parima and Brazil . . • .88 



CHAPTER IX. 

'J'he Low Lands of South America — -Desert of Patagonia — The Pampas of 
Buenos Ay res — The Silvas of the Amazons — The Llanos of the Orinoco 
and Venezuela — Geological Notice . . . .103 



CHAPTER X. 

Central America — West Indian Islands — Geological Notice . .110 

CHAPTER XL 

North America — Table-land and Mountains of Mexico — The Rocky Moun- 
tains — The Maritime Chain and Mountains of Russian America . 116 

CHAPTER XIL 

North America (continued) : — The Great Central Plain or Valley of the 
Mississippi — The Alleghany Mountains — The Atlantic Slope — The Allan- 
tic Plain — Geological Notice . . . . .120 

CHAPTER XIIL 

Greenland — Spitzbergen — Iceland — Jan May en's Land — Antarctic Lands — 
Victoria Continent ....... 129 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



The Continent of Australia — Tasmania, or Van Diemen's Land — New Zea- 
land — New Guinea — Borneo — Atolls — Encircling Reefs — Coral Reefs — 
Barrier Reefs — Volcanic Islands — Areas of Subsidence and Elevation in 
the Bed of the Pacific — Active Volcanoes .... 137 



CHAPTER XV. 

The Ocean — Its Size, Colour, Pressure, and Saltness^Tides, Waves, and 
Currents — Temperature — North and South Polar Ice — Inland Seas 157 



CHAFFER XVI. 

Springs — Basins of the Ocean — Origin, Course, and Floods of Rivers — Hy- 
draulic Systems of Europe — African rivers : The Nile, Niger, «&c. 176 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Asiatic Rivers — Euphrates and Tigris — River Systems south of the Hima- 
laya — Chinese Rivers — Siberian Rivers . . . .191 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

River Systems of North America — Rivers of Central America — Rivers of 
South America, and of Australia ..... 202 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Lakes — Northern System of the Great Continent — Mountain System of the 
same — American Lakes . . . . . , 312 



CHAPTER XX. 
The Atmosphere ....... 220 

CHAPTER XXL 

Vegetation — The Nourishment and Growth of Plants Classes — Botanical 
Districts ........ 227 



10 CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Vegetation of the Great Continent — Of the Arctic Islands — And of the Arc- 
tic and North Temperate Regions of Europe and Asia . . 240 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
Flora of Tropical Asia — Of the Indian Archipelago, India, and Arabia 253 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

African Flora — Flora of Australia, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, and of 
Polynesia . . . . . . . . 259 

CHAPTER XXV. 

American Vegetation — Flora of North, Central, and South America — An- 
tarctic Flora — Marine Vegetation . . . . . 270 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
Distribution of Insects ...... 288 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

Distribution of Fishes, and of the Marine Mammalia, Phocae, Dolphins, and 
Whales . . . ... . . .293 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Distribution of Reptiles — Frogs and Toads — Snakes, Saurians, and Tor- 
toises ........ 306 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Distribution of Birds in the Arctic Regions — In Europe, Asia, Africa, Ame- 
rica, and the Antarctic Regions ..... 316 



* CONTENTS. 11 

CHAPTER XXX. 
Distribution of Mammalia throughout the Earth . . : . 336 

bHAPTEE XXXI. 

The Distribution, Condition, and Future Prospects of the Human Race 356 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTER I. 



GEOLOGY. 



The change produced in the civilized world within a few 
years, by the application of the powers of nature to locomo- 
tion, is so astonishing, that it leads to a consideration of the 
influence of man on the material world, his relation with 
regard to animate and inanimate beings, and the causes 
which have had the greatest effect on the -physical, moral, 
and intellectual condition of the human race. 

The former state of our terrestrial habitation, the succes- 
sive convulsions which have ultimately led to its present 
geographical arrangement, and to the actual distribution of 
land and water, so powerfully influential on the destinies of 
mankind, are circumstances of primary importance. 

The position of the earth with regard to the sun, its con- 
nexion with the bodies of the solar system, together with its 
size and form, have been noticed by the author elsewhere. 
It was there shown that our globe forms but an atom in the 
immensity of space, utterly invisible from the nearest fixed 
star, and scarcely a telescopic object to the remote planets of 
our own system. The increase of temperature with the depth 
below the surface of the earth, and the tremendous desola- 
tion hurled over wide regions by numerous fire-breathing 
mountains, show that man is rerpoved but a few miles from 
immense lakes or seas of liquid fire. The very shell on 
which he stands is unstable under his feet, not only from 
those temporary convulsions that seem to shake the globe 
to its centre, but from a slow almost imperceptible elevation 
in some places, and an equally gentle Subsidence in others, 
2 



14 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

as if the internal molten matter were subject to secular tides, 
now heaving and now ebbing, or that the subjacent rocks 
were in one place expanded and in another contracted by 
changes of temperature. 

The earthquake and the torrent, the august and terrible 
ministers of Almighty power, have torn the solid earth and 
opened the seals of the most ancient records of creation, 
written in indelible characters on " the perpetual hills, and 
the everlasting mountain's." There we read of the changes 
that have brought the rude mass to its present fair state, and 
of the myriads of beings that have appeared on this mortal 
stage, have fulfilled their destinies, and have been swept 
from existence to make w^ay for new races which, in their 
turn, have vanished from the scene till the creation of man 
completed the glorious work. Who shall define the periods 
of those mornings and evenings when God saw that his work 
was good ? and who shall declare the time allotted to the 
human race, when the generations of the most insignificant 
insect existed for unnumbered ages? Yet man is also to 
vanish in the ever-changino- course of events. The earth 
is to be burnt up, and the elements are to melt with fervent 
heat — to be again reduced to chaos — possibly to be renovated 
and adorned for other races of beings. These stupendous 
changes may be but cycles in those great laws of the uni- 
verse, where all is variable but the laws themselves and He 
who has ordained them. 

The earth consists of a great variety of substances, some 
of which occur in amorphous masses, others are disposed in 
regular layers or strata, either horizontal or inclined at all 
angles to the horizon. By mining, man has penetrated only 
a very little w^ay, but by reasoning from the dip or inclina- 
tion of the strata at or near the surface, and from other cir- 
cumstances,' he has obtained a pretty accurate idea of the 
structure of our globe to the depth of about ten miles. All 
the substances of which we have any information are divided 
into four classes, distinguished by the manner in which they 
have^TTeen formed, namely — Plutonic and Volcanic rocks, 
both of igneous origin, though produced under different 
circumstances ; Agueous or Stratified rocks, entirely due to 
the action of water, as the name implies ; and Metaraorphic 
rocks, deposited also by water, according to the opinion of 
many eminent geologists, and consequently stratified, but 



GEOLOGY. 15 

subsequently altered and crystallized by heat. The Aqueous 
and Volcanic rocks are formed at the surface of the earth, 
the Plutonic and Metamorphic at great depths, but all of 
them have originated simultaneously during every geological 
period, and are now in a state of slow and constant progress. 
The antagonist principles of fire and water have ever been 
and still are the cause of the perpetuaTvTcissitudes to which 
the crust of the earth is liable. 

It has been ascertained by observation that the Plutonic 
rocks, consisting of the granites and some of the porphyries, 
were formed in the deep and fiery caverns of the earth, of 
melted matter, which crystallized as it slowly copied under 
enormous pressure,, and was then heaved in unstratified 
masses by the elastic force of the internal heat even to the 
tops of the highest mountains, or forced in a semifluid state 
into fissures of the superincumbent strata, sometimes into 
the cracks of previously formed granite ; for that rock, which 
constitutes the base of so large a portion of the earth's crust, 
has not been all formed at once ; some portions had been 
solid while others were yet in a liquid state. This class of 
rocks is completely destitute of fossil remains. 

Although granite and the volcanic rocks are both due to 
the action of fire, their nature and position are very different : 
granite, fused in the interior of the earth, has been cooled 
and consolidated before coming to the surface ; besides, it 
generally consists of few ingredients, so that it has nearly 
the same character in all countries. But as the volcanic 
fire rises to the very surface of the earth, fusing w^hatever it 
meets with, volcanic rocks take various forms, not only from 
the different kinds of strata which are melted, but from the 
different conditions under which the liquid matter has been 
cooled, though most frequently on the surface — a circum- 
stance that seems to have had the greatest effect on its ap- 
pearance and structure. Sometimes it approaches so -nearly 
to granite that it is difficult to perceive a distinction : at 
other times it becomes glass : in short, all those massive, 
unstratified, and occasionally columnar rocks, as basalt, 
greenstone, porphyry, and serpentine, are due to volcanic 
fires, and are devoid of fossil remains. - 

There seems scarcely to have been any age of the world 
in which volcanic eruptions have not taken place in some 
part of the globe. Lava has pierced through every descrip- 



16 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

tion of rocks, spread over the surface of those existing at 
the time, filled their crevices, and flowed between their 
strata. Ever changing its place of action, it has burst out 
at the bottom of the sea as well as on dry land. Enormous 
quantities of scoriae and ashes have been ejected from num- 
berless craters, and have formed extensive deposits in the 
sea, in lakes, and on the land, in which are imbedded the 
remains of the animals and vegetables of the epoch. Some 
of these deposits have become hard rock, others remain in 
a crumbling state ; and as they alternate with the aqueous 
strata of almost every period, they contain the fossils of all 
the geological epochs, chiefly fresh and salt water testacese. 

According to a theory now generally adopted, which 
originated with Mr. Lyell, whose works are models of philo- 
sophical investigation, the metamorphic rocks, which consist 
of gneiss, micaschist, clay-slate, statuary marble, &c., were 
formed of the sediment of water in regular layers, differing 
in kind and colour, but, having been deposited near .the 
places where plutonic rocks were generated, they have 
been changed by the heat transmitted from the fused mat- 
ter, and in cooling under heavy pressure and at great depths 
they have become as highly crystallized as the granite 
itself, without losing their stratified form. An earthy 
stratum has sometimes been changed into a highly crystal- 
lized rock to the distance of a quarter of a mile from the 
point of contact by transmitted heat, and there are instances 
of dark-coloured limestone full of fossil shells, that has been 
changed into statuary marble from that cause. Such altera- 
tions may frequently be seen to a small extent in rocks adja- 
cent to a stream of lava. There is not a trace of organic 
remains in the metamorphic rocks ; their strata are some- 
times horizontal, but they are usually tilted at all angles to 
the horizon, and form some of the highest mountains and 
most extensive table-lands on the face of the globe. Al- 
though there is the greatest similarity in the plutonic rocks 
in all parts of the world, they are by no means identical ; 
they differ in colour, and even in ingredients, though these 
are few. 

Aqueous rocks are all stratified, being the sedimentary 
deposits of water. They originate in the wear of the land 
by rain, streams, or the ocean. The debris carried by run- 
ning water is deposited at the bottom of the seas and lakes, 



GEOLOGY. 17 

where il is consolidated, and then raised up by sirbterraneous 
forces, again to undergo the same process after a lapse of 
time. By the washing away of the land the lower rocks are 
laid bare, and, as the materials are deposited in different 
places according to their weight, the strata are exceedingly 
varied, but consist chiefly of arenaceous or sandstone rocks, 
argillaceous or clayey rocks, and of calcareous rocks com- 
posed of sand, clay, and carbonate of lime. They constitute 
three great classes, which, in an ascending order, are the 
primary and secondary fossiliferous strata, and the Tertiary 
formations. 

The primary fossiliferous strata, the most ancient of all 
the sedimentary rocks, consisting of limestone, sandstones, 
and shales, are entirely of marine origin, having been formed 
far from land at the bottom of a very deep ocean ; conse- 
quently they contain the exuviae of marine animals only, 
and after the lapse of unnumbered ages the ripple marks of 
the waves are still distinctly visible on some of their strata. 
This series of rocks is subdivided into the Cambrian and 
the upper and lower Silurian systems, on account of differ- 
ences in their fossil remains.' 

The Cambrian rocks, sometimes many thousand yards 
thick, are for the most part destitute of organic remains, but 
the Silurian rocks abound in them more and more as the 
strata lie higher in the series. In the lower Silurian group 
are the remains of shell-fish, almost all of extinct genera, 
and the few that have any aflfinity to those alive .are of ex- 
tinct species ; Crinoidea, or stone-lilies, which had been 
fixed to the rocks like tulips on their stems, are coeval with 
the earliest inhabitants of the deep ; and the trilobite, a 
jointed creature of the crab kind, with prominent eyes, are 
almost exclusively confined to the Silurian strata, but the 
last traces of them are found in the coal-measures above. 
In the upper Silurian group are abundance of marine shells 
of almost every order, together with Crinoidea, vast quanti- 
ties of corals, and some sea-weeds : several fossil sauroid 
fish, of extinct genera, but high organization, have been 
found in the highest beds — the only vertebrated animal that 
has yet been discovered among the countless profusion of 
the lower orders of creatures that are entombed in the primary 
fossiliferous strata. The remains of one or more land-plants, 
in a very imperfect state, have been found in the Silurian 
2* 



18 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

rocks of North America, which shows that there had been 
land with vegetation at that early period. The type of these 
plants, as well as the size of the shells and the quantity of 
the coral, indicate that a uniformly warm temperature had 
then prevailed over the globe. During the Silurian period 
an ocean covered the northern hemisphere, islands and lands 
of moderate size had just begun to rise, and earthquakes 
with volcanic eruptions from insular and submarine vol- 
canos, were frequent towards its close. 

The secondary fossiliferous strata, which comprise a great 
geological period, and constitute the principal part of the 
high land in Europe, were deposited at the bottom of an 
ocean, like the primary, from the debris of all the others 
carried down by water, and still bear innumerable tokens 
of their marine origin, although they have for ages formed 
part of the dry land. Calcareous rocks are more abundant 
in these strata than in the crystalline, probably because the 
carbonic acid was then, as it still is, driven off from the 
lower strata by the internal heat, and came to the surface as 
gas or in calcareous springs, which either rose in the sea, 
and furnished materials for shell-fish and coral insects to 
build their habitations and form coral reefs, or deposited their 
calcareous matter on the land in the form of rocks. 

The Devonian or old red sandstone group, in many places 
ten thousand feet thick, consisting of strata of dark red and 
other sandstones, marls, coralline limestones, conglomerates, 
&c., is the lowest of the secondary fossiliferous strata, and 
forms a link between them and the Silurian rocks by an ana- 
logy in their fossil remains. It has fossils peculiarly its own, 
but it has also some shells and corals common to the strata 
both above and below it. There are various families of ex- 
tinct sauroid fish in this group, some of which were gigantic^ 
others had strong bony shields on their heads, and one genus, 
covered with enamelled scales, had appendages like wings. 
The shark approaches nearer to some of these ancient fish 
than any other now living. 

During the long period of perfect tranquillity that prevailed 
after the Devonian group was deposited, a very warm, moist, 
and extremely equable climate, which extended all over the 
globe, had clothed the islands and lands in the ocean then 
covering the northern hemisphere with exuberant tropical 
forests and jungles. Subsequent inroads of fresh water or of 



GEOLOGY. 19 

the sea, or rather partial sinkings of the land, had submerged 
these forests and jungles, which, being mixed with layers of 
sand and mud, had in time been consolidated into one mass, 
and were then either left dry by the retreat of the waters, or 
gently raised above their surface. 

These constitute the^emarkable group of the carboniferous 
strata, which consists of numberless layers of various sub- 
stances filled with a prodigious quantity of the remains of 
fossil land-plants, intermixed with beds of coal, which is en- 
tirely composed of vegetable matter. In some cases the 
plants appear to have been carried down by floods and de- 
posited in estuaries, but in most instances the beauty, deli- 
cacy, and sharpness of the impressions show that they had 
grown on the spot where the coal was formed. More than 
three hundred fossil plants have been collected from the shale 
where they abound, frequently with their seeds and fruit, so 
that enough remains to show the peculiar nature of thisflora, 
whose distinguishing feature was the preponderance of ferns : 
among these there were tree-ferns which must have been 
forty or fifty feet high. There were also plants resembling 
the horse-tail tribe, of gigantic size ; others like the tropical 
club mosses : an aquatic plant of an extinct family was very 
abundant, besides many others to which we have nothing ana- 
logous. Forest-trees of great magnitude, of the pine and fir 
tribes, flourished at that period. The remains of an extinct 
araucaria, one of the largest of the pine family, have been 
found in the British coal-fields ; the existing species now 
grow in very warm countries: a few rare instances occur of 
grasses, palms, and liliaceous plants. The botanical districts 
were very extensive when the coal-plants were growing, for 
the species are nearly identical throughout the coal-fields of 
Europe and America. From the extent of the ocean, the 
insular structure of the land, the profusion of ferns and fir- 
trees, and the warm, moist, and equable climate, the northern 
hemisphere during the formation of the coal strata is thought 
to have borne a strong resemblance to the South Pacific, with 
its fern and fir clothed lands of New Zealand, Kerguelen 
islands, and others. 

The animal remains of this period are in the mountain lime- 
stone, a rock occasionally nine hundred feet thick, which, in 
some instances, lies beneath the coal-measures, and some- 
times alternates with the shale and sandstone. They consist 



20 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

of crinbidea and marine testacese, among which the size of 
the chambered shells, as well as that of the corals, shows that 
the ocean was very warm at that time, even in the high 
northern latitudes. 

The coal strata have been very much broken and deranged 
in many places by earthquakes, which frequently occurred 
during the secondary fossiliferous period, and from time to 
time raised islands and land from the deep. However, these 
and all other changes that have taken place on the earth have 
been gradual and partial, whether brought about by fire or 
water. The older rocks are more shattered by earthquakes 
than the newer, because the movement came from below; 
but these convulsions have never extended all over the earth 
at the same time — they have always been local: for example, 
the Silurian strata have been dislocated and tossed in Britain 
while a vast area in the south of Sweden and Russia still 
retains a horizontal position. There is no proof that any 
mountain-chain has ever been raised at once; on the con- 
trary, the elevation has always been produced by a long-con- 
tinued and reiterated succession of internal convulsions, with 
intervals of repose. In many instances the land has risen 
up or sunk down by an imperceptible equable motion con- 
tinued for ages, while in other places the surface of the earth 
has remained stationary for long geological periods. 

The magnesian limestone, or permian formation, comes 
immediately above the coal-measures, and consists of brec- 
cias or conglomerates, gypsum, sandstone, marl, &c. ; but 
its distinguishing feature is a yellow limestone rock, contain- 
ing carbonate of magnesia, which often takes a granular tex- 
ture, and is then known as dolomite. The permian forma- 
tion has a fossil flora and fauna peculiar to itself, mingled 
with those of the coal strata. Here the remnant of an ear- 
lier creation gradually tends to its final extinction, and a new 
one begins to appear. The flora is, in many instances, spe- 
cifically the same with that in the coal strata below. Cer- 
tain fish are also common to the two, which never appear 
again. They belong to a race universal in the early geolo- 
gical periods, and bear a strong resemblance to saurian rep- 
tiles. A small number of existing genera only, such as the 
shark and sturgeon, make some approach to the structure of 
these ancient inhabitants of the waters. The new creation 
is marked by the introduction of two species of saurian rep- 



GEOLOGY. 21 

tiles: the fossil remains of one have been found in the mag- 
nesian limestone in England, and those of the other in a cor- 
responding formation in Germany. They are the earliest 
members of a family which was to have dominion in the land 
and water for ages. 

A series of red marls, rock-salt, and sandstones, which 
•have arisen from the disintegration of metamorphic slates and 
porphyritic trap containing oxide of iron, and known as the 
trias or new red sandstone system, lies above the magnesian 
limestone. In England this formation is particularly rich in 
rock-salt, which, with layers of gypsum and marl, is some- 
times six hundred feet thick ; but in this country the muschel- 
kalk is wanting, which in Germany is so remarkable for the 
quantity of organic remains. At this time creatures like 
frogs of enormous dimensions had been frequent, as they have 
left their footsteps on what must then have been a soft shore. 
Forty-seven genera of fossil remains have been found in the 
trias in Germany, consisting of shells, cartilaginous fish, en- 
crinites, &c., all distinct in species, and many distinct in 
genera, from the organic fossils of the magnesian limestone 
below, and also from those entombed in the strata above. 

During a long period of tranquillity the oolite or Jurassic 
group was next deposited in a sea of variable depth, and 
consisted of sands, sandstones, marls, clays, and limestone. 
At this time there was a complete change in the aqueous de- 
posits all over Europe. The red iron-stained arenaceous rock, 
the black coal, and dark strata were succeeded by light blue 
clays, pale yellow limestones, and, lastly, white chalk. The 
water that deposited the strata must have been highly charged 
with carbonate of lime, since few of the formations of that pe- 
riod are without calcareous matter, and calcareous rocks were 
formed to a prodigious extent throughout Europe; the Pyre- 
nees, Alps, Apennines, and Balkan abound in them, and the 
Jura mountains, which have given their name to the series, 
are formed of them. The European ocean then teemed with 
animal life; whole beds consist almost entirely of marine 
shells and corals. Belemnites and ammonites, from an inch 
in diameter to the size of a cart-wheel, are entombed by my- 
riads in the strata ; whole forests of that beautiful zoophite, 
the stone-lily, flourished on the surface of the oolite, then 
under the waters ; and the encrinite, one of the same genu§, 
is embedded in millions in the enchorial shell marble, which 



22 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

occupies such extensive tracts in Europe. Fossil fish are 
numerous in these strata, but different from thoae of the coal 
series, the permian formation, and trias. Not one genus of 
the fish of this period are now in existence. The newly- 
raised islands and lands were clothed with vegetation like 
that of the large islands of the intertropical Archipelagos of 
the present day, which, though less rich than during the car- 
boniferous period, still indicates a very moist and warm cli- 
mate. Ferns were less abundant, and they were associated 
with various genera and species of the cycadeae, which had 
grown on the southern coast of England, and in other parts 
of northern Europe, congeners of the present cycas and zamia 
of the tropics. These plants had been very numerous, and 
the pandanae, or screw-pine, the first tenant of the new lands 
in ancient and modern times, is a family found in a fossil 
state in the inferior oolite of England, which was but just 
rising from the deep at that time. The species now flourish- 
ing grows only on the coasts of such coral islands in the Pa- 
cific as have recently emerged from the waves. In the upper 
strata of this group, however, the confervse and monocotyle- 
donous plants become more rare — an indication of a change 
of climate. 

The new lands that were scattered in the ocean of the 
oolitic period were drained by rtvers, and inhabited by huge 
crocodiles and saurian reptiles of gigantic size, mostly of ex- 
tinct genera. The crocodiles came nearest to modern rep- 
tiles, but the others, though bearing a remote similitude in 
general structure to living forms, were quite anomalous, com- 
bining in one the structure of various distinct creatures, and 
so monstrous that they must have been more like the visions 
of a troubled dream than things of real existence; yet in or- 
ganization a few of them came nearer to the type of living 
mammalia than any existing reptiles do. Some of these sau- 
rians had lived in the water, others were amphibious, and 
the various species of one genus even had wings like a bat, 
and fed on insects. There were both herbivorous and pre- 
daceous saurians, and from their size and strength they must 
have been formidable enemies. Besides, the numbers de- 
posited are so. great that they must have swarmed for ages- 
in the estuaries and shallow seas of the period, especially in 
the lias, a marine stratum of clay the lowest of the oolite 
series. They gradually declined towards the end of the se- 



GEOLOGY. 23 

condary fossilifefous epoch, but as a class they lived in all 
subsequent eras, and still exist in tropical countries, although 
the species are very different from their ancient congeners. 
Tortoises of various kinds were contemporary with the sau- 
rians, also a family that still exists. In the stonefield slate, 
a stratum of the lower oolitic group, there are the remains of 
insects; and the bones of two small quadrupeds have been 
found there belonging to the marsupial tribe, such as the opos- 
sum ; a very remarkable circumstance, because that family 
of animals at the present time is confined to New Holland, 
South America, and as far north as Pennsylvania at least. 
The great changes in animal life during this period were in- 
dications of the successive alterations that had taken place 
on the earth's surface. 

The cretaceous strata follow the oolite in ascending order, 
consisting of clay, green and iron sands, blue limestone, and 
chalk, probably formed of the decay of coral and shells, 
which predominates so much in England and other parts of 
Europe, that it has given the name and its peculiar feature 
to the whole group. It is, however, by no means universal ; 
the chalk is wanting in many parts of the world where the 
other strata of this series prevail, and then their connection 
with the group can only be ascertained by the identity of 
their fossil remains. With the exception of- some beds of 
coal among the oolitic series, the Wealden clay, the lowest 
of the cretaceous group in England, is a fresh-water forma- 
tion, and the tropical character of its flora shows that the cli- 
mate was still very warm. Plants allied to the zamias and 
cycades of our tropical regions, many ferns and pines of the 
genus araucaria, characterized its vegetation, and the upright 
stems of a fossil forest at Portland show that it had been co- 
vered with trees. It was inhabited by tortoises approaching 
to families now living in warm countries, and saurian rep- 
tiles of five different genera swarmed in the lakes and estua- 
ries. This clay contains fresh-water shells, fish of the carp 
kind, and the bones of wading birds. The Wealden clay is 
one of the various instances of the subsidence of land of which 
there were others during this period. 

The cretaceous strata above our Wealden clay are full 
of marine exuvis. There are vast tracts of sand in north- 
ern Europe, and many very extensive tracts of chalk, but in 
the southern part of the continent the cretaceous rocks 



24 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

assume a different character. There and elsewhere exten- 
sive limestone rocks, filled with very peculiar shells, show 
that when the cretaceous strata were forming, an ocean 
extended from the A-tlantic into Asia, which covered the 
south of France, all southern Europe, part of Syria, the isles 
of the iEgean Sea, and the coasts of Thrace and the Troad. 
The remains of turtles have been found in the cretaceous 
group, quantities of coral, and abundance of shells of ex- 
tinct species : some of the older kinds still existed, new 
ones were introduced, and some of the most minute species 
of microscopic shells, which constitute a large portion of the 
chalk, are supposed to be the same with creatures now 
alive, the first instance of identity of species in the ancient 
and modern creation. An approximation to recent times is 
to observed also in the arrangement of organised nature, 
since at this early period, and indeed even in the silurian 
and oolitic epochs, the marine fauna was divided, as now, 
into distinct geographical provinces. The great saurians 
were on the decline, and many of them were found no more, 
but a gigantic creature intermediate between the living 
monitor and iguana, lived at this period. 

An immense geological cycle elapsed between the termi- 
nation of the secondary fossiliferous strata and the beginning 
of the tertiary. With the latter a new order of things com- 
menced approaching more closely to the actual state of the 
globe. During the tertiary formation the same causes under 
new circumstances produced an infinite variety in the order 
and kind of the strata, accompanied by a corresponding 
change in animal and vegetable life. The old creation, 
which had nothing in common with the existing order of 
things, had passed away and given place to one more nearly 
approaching to that which now prevails. Among the my- 
riads of beings that inhabited the earth and the ocean during 
the secondary fossiliferous epoch scarcely one species is to 
be found in the tertiary. Two planets could hardly differ 
more in their natural productions. This break in the law 
of continuity is the more remarkable, as hitherto some of the 
newly created animals were always introduced before the 
older were extinguished. The circumstances and climate 
suited to the one became more and more unfit for the other, 
which consequently perished gradually while their successors 
increased. It is possible that as observations become more 
extended this hiatus may be filled up. 



GEOLOGY. 25 

The series of rocks from the granite to the end of the 
secondary fossiiiferous strata, taken as a whole, constitute 
the solid crust of the globe, and in that sense are universally 
diffused over the earth's surface. The tertiary strata occupy 
the hollows formed in this crust, whether by subterraneous 
movements, by lakes, or denudation by water, as in the 
estuaries of rivers, and consequently occur in irregular 
tracts, often, however, of prodigious thickness and extent. 
Indeed they seem to have been as widely developed as any 
other formation, though time has been wanting to bring 
them into view. 

The innumerable basins and hollows with which the con- 
tinents and larger islands had been indented for ages after 
the termination of the secondary fossiiiferous series, had 
sometimes been fresh-water lakes, and at other times were 
inundated by the sea ; consequently the deposits which took 
place during these changes alternately contain the spoils of 
terrestrial and marine animals. The frequent intrusion of 
volcanic strata among the tertiary formations shows that, in 
Europe, the earth had been in a very disturbed state, and 
that these repeated vicissitudes had been occasioned by 
elevations and depressions of the soil, as well as by the 
action of water. 

There are three distinct groups in these strata : the lowest 
tertiary or Eiocene group, so called by Mr. Lyell, because, 
among the myriads of fossil shell- fish it contains, very few 
are identical with those now living ; the Meiocene, or mid- 
dle group, has a greater number of the exuviae of existing 
species of shells ; and the Pleiocene, or upper tertiary group, 
still more. Though frequently heaved up to great eleva- 
tions on the flanks of the mountain-chains, as, for example, 
on the Alps and Apennines, by far the greater part of the 
tertiary strata maintain their original horizontal position in 
the very places where they were formed. Immense insu- 
lated deposits of this kind are to be met with all over the 
world ; Europe abounds with them, London and Paris 
stand on such basins, and they cover immense tracts both 
in North and South America. 

The monstrous reptiles had mostly disappeared, and the 
mammalia now took possession of the earth, of forms 
scarcely less anomalous than their predecessors, though 
approaching more nearly to those alive. 
3 



26 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Numerous species of extinct animals that lived during the 
earliest or Eiocene period have been found in various parts 
of the world, especially in the Paris basin, of the order of 
Pachydermata, to the greater number of which we have 
nothing analogous; they were mostly amphibious and herbi- 
vorous quadrupeds, which had frequented the borders of the 
rivers and lakes that covered the greater part of Europe at 
that time. This is the more extraordinary, as existing ani- 
mals of that order, namely, a daman and three tapirs, are 
confined to the torrid zone. These creatures were widely 
ditl'used, and some of them were associated with genera 
still existing, though of totally different species ; such as 
animals allied to the raccoon and dormouse, the ox, bear, 
deer, the fox, the dog, and others. Although these quad- 
rupeds differ so widely from those of the present day, the 
same proportion existed then as now between the carnivo- 
rous and herbaceous genera. The spoils of marine mam- 
malia of this period have also been found, sometimes at 
great elevations above the sea, all of extinct species, and 
some of these cetacea were of huge size. This marvellous 
change of the creative power was not confined to the earth 
and the ocean ; the air also was now occupied by many 
extinct races of birds allied to the owl, buzzard, quail, cur- 
lew, &c. The climate must still have been warmer than at 
present from the remains of land and sea plants found in 
high latitudes. Even in England bones of the opossum, 
monkey, and boa have been discovered, all animals of warm 
countries, besides fossil sword and saw fish, both of genera 
foreign to the British seas. 

During the Meiocene period new amphibious quadrupeds 
were associated with the old, of which the deinotherium is 
the most characteristic, and much the largest of the mam- 
malia yet found, far surpassing the largest elephant in size, 
of a singular form, and unknown nature. 

The palseotherium was also of this period, and also the 
mastodon, both of large dimensions. Various families, and 
even genera, of quadrupeds now existing were associated 
with these extraordinary creatures, tliough of extinct species, 
such as the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, tapir, horse, 
bear, wolf, hyaena, weasel, beaver, ox, buffalo, deer, &c. ; 
and also marine mammalia, as dolphins, sea-calves, wal- 
ruses, and lamantines. Indeed, in the constant increase of 



GEOLOGY. 27 

animal life manifested throughout the whole of the tertiary 
strata, the forms approach nearer to living species as their 
remains lie high in the series. 

In the older Pleiocene period some of the large amphi- 
bious quadrupeds, and other genera of mammalia of the 
earlier tertiary periods, appear no more ; but there were the 
mastodon, and the elephas primogenius, or mammoth, some 
species of which, of prodigious size, were associated with 
numerous quadrupeds of existing genera, but lost species. 
Extinct species of almost all the quadrupeds now alive seem 
to have inhabited the earth at that time ; their bones have 
been discovered in caverns ; they were imbedded in the 
breccias and in most of the strata of that epoch — as the hip- 
popo-tamus, rhinoceros, elephant, horse, bear, wolf, water- 
rat, hyaena, and various bird^. It is remarkable that in the 
caverns of Australia the fossil bones all belong to extinct 
species of gigantic kangaroos and wombats, animals belong- 
ing to the marsupial family, which are so peculiarly the 
inhabitants of that country at the present day, but of dimi- 
nished size. The newer Pleiocene strata show that the 
same analogy existed between the extinct and recent mam- 
malia of South America, which, like their living congeners, 
as far as we know, belong to that continent alone ; for the 
fossil remains, quite difl'erent from those in the old world, 
are of animals of the same genera with the sloths, anteaters, 
and armadilloes, which now inhabit that country, but of 
vastly superior size and different species. The megathe- 
rium and equus curvidens, or extinct horse, had so vast a 
range in America, that, while Mr. Lyell collected their bones 
in Georgia, in 30° N. latitude, Mr. Darwin brought them 
from the corresponding latitude in South America. The 
equus curvidens differed as much from the living horse as 
the quagga or zebra does, and the European fossil horse is 
also a distinct and lost animal. 

~ The greater part of the land in the northern hemisphere 
was elevated above the deep during the tertiary period, and 
such lands as already existed acquired additional height ; 
consequently the climate, which had previously been tropi- 
cal, became gradually colder, for an increase of land, which 
raises the temperature between the tropics, has exactly the 
contrary effect in higher latitudes. Hence excessive cold 
prevailed during the latter part of the Pleiocene period, and 



28 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

a great part of the European continent was covered by an 
ocean full of floating ice, not unlike that experienced at this 
day off the north-eastern coast of America. 

During the latter of the Pleiocene period, however, the 
bed of that glacial ocean rose partially, and after many vicis- 
situdes the European continent assumed nearly the form and 
climate it now has. There is every reason to believe that 
the glacial sea extended also over great portions of the arctic 
lands of Asia and America. Old forms of animal and vege- 
table life were destroyed by these alterations in the surface 
of the earth and the consequent change of temperature ; and 
when in the progress of the Pleiocene period the mountain- 
tops appeared as islands above the water, they were clothed 
with the flora and peopled by the animals they still retain ; 
and new forms were added as the land rose and became 
dry and fitted to receive and maintain the races of beings 
now alive, all of which had possession of the earth for ages 
prior to. the historical or human period. Some of the ex- 
tinct animals had long resisted the great vicissitudes of the 
times ; of these the mammoth, or elephas primogenius, whose 
fossil remains are found all over Europe, Asia, and America, 
but especially in the gelid soil of Siberia, alone outlived its 
associates, the last remnant of a former world. In two or 
three instances this animal has been discovered entire, en- 
tombed in frozen mud, with its hair and its flesh so fresh 
that wolves and dogs fed upon it. It has been supposed 
that, as the Siberian rivers flow for hundreds of miles from 
the southern part of the country to the Arctic Ocean, these 
elephants might have been drowned by floods while brows- 
ing in the milder regions, and that their bodies were car- 
ried down by the rivers and imbedded in mud, and frozen 
before they had time to decay. Although the congeners of 
this animal are now the inhabitants of the torrid zone, they 
may have been able to endure the cold of a Siberian winter. 
Baron Cuvier found that this animal differed as much from 
the living elephant as a horse does from an ass. The sup- 
ply of food in summer was probably sufficient, since the 
quantity requisite for the maintenance of the larger animals 
is by no means in proportion to their bulk, and it may have 
migrated to a more genial climate in the cold months. 

Shell-fish seem to have been more able to endure all the 
great geological changes than any of their organic asso- 



GEOLOGY. 29 

ciates ; they show a constant approximation to modern 
species during the progress of the tertiary periods. The 
whole of these strata contain enormous quantities of shells 
of extinct species ; in the oldest, three and a half per cent, 
of the shells are identical with some now existing, while on 
the uppermost strata of this geological period there are not 
less than from ninety to ninety-five in a hundred identical 
with those now alive. 

Of all the fossil fishes from the silurian strata to the end 
of the tertiary, not one is specifically the same with living 
forms, except the Mallotus villosus, or captan, of the salmon 
family, and perhaps a few others of the most recent of these 
periods. In the Eiocene strata one-third belong to extinct 
genera. , 

Under the vegetable mould in every country there is a 
stratum of loose sand, gravel, and mud lying upon the sub- 
jacent rocks, often of great thickness, called alluvium, which 
in the high latitudes of North America and Europe is mixed 
with enormous fragments of rock, sometimes angular and 
sometimes rounded and waterworn, which have been trans- 
ported hundreds of miles from their origin. It is there 
known as the Boulder formation, or Northern Drift, because, 
from the identity of the boulders with the rocks of the nor- 
thern mountains, they evidently have come from them, and 
their size becomes less as the distance increases. In Russia 
there are blocks of great magnitude that have been carried 
eight hundred and even a thousand miles south-east from 
their origin in the Scandinavian range. There is every 
reason to believe that such masses, enormous as they are, 
have been transported by icebergs and deposited when the 
northern parts of the continents were covered by the glacial 
sea. The same process is now in progress in the high 
southern latitudes. 

The last manifestation of creative power, with few excep- 
tions, differs specifically from all that went before ; the 
recent strata contain only the exuviae of animals now living, 
often mixed with the bones and the works of man. 

The thickness of the fossiliferous strata up to the end. of 
the tertiary formation has been estimated at about seven or 
eight miles ; so that the time requisite for their deposition 
must have been immense. Every river carries down mud, 
sand, or gravel to the sea ; the Ganges brings more than 
3* 



30 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

700,000 cubic feet of mud every hour, the Yellow River in 
China 2,000,000, and the Mississippi still more ; yet, not- 
withstanding these great deposits, the Italian hydrographer, 
Manfredi, has estimated that, if the sediment of all the rivers 
on the globe were spread equally over the bottom of the 
ocean, it would require 1000 years to raise its bed one foot ; 
so at that rate it would require 3,960,000 years to raise the 
bed of the ocean alone to a height nearly equal to the thick- 
ness of the fossiliferous strata, or seven miles and a half, not 
taking account of the waste of the coasts by the sea itself; 
but if the whole globe be considered instead of the bottom 
of the sea only, the time would be nearly four times as 
great, even supposing as much alluvium to be deposited 
uniformly both with regard to time and place, which it 
never is. Besides, in various places, the strata have been 
more than once carried to the bottom of the ocean and 
again raised above its surface by subterranean fires after 
many ages, so that the whole period from the beginning of 
these primary fossiliferous strata to the present day must be 
be great beyond calculation, and only bears comparison with 
the astronomical cycles, as might naturally be expected, the 
earth being without doubt of the same antiquity with the 
other bodies of the solar system. What then shall we say 
if the time be included which the granitic, metamorphic, 
and recent series occupied in forming ? These great periods 
of time correspond wonderfully with the gradual increase of 
animal life and the successive creation and extinction of 
numberless orders of being, and with the incredible quantity 
of Organic remains buried in the crust of the earth in every 
country on the face of the globe. 

Every great geological change in the nature of the strata 
was accompanied by the introduction of a new race of beings, 
and the gradual extinction of those that had previously 
existed, their structure and habits being no longer fitted for 
the new circumstances in which these changes had placed 
them. The change, however, never was abrupt, except at 
the beginning of the tertiary strata ; and it may be observed 
that, although the mammalia camelast, there is no proof of 
progressive development, for animals and plants of high 
organization appeared among the earliest of their kind. 

The geographical distribution of animated beings was 
much more extensive in the ancient seas and lands than in 



GEOLOGY. - 31 

later times. In very remote ages the same animal inhabited 
the most distant parts of the sea ; the corallines built from 
the Equator to within ten or fifteen degrees of the Pole ; and, 
previous to the formation of the carboniferous strata, there 
appears to have been even a greater uniformity in the vege- 
table than in the animal world, though New Holland had 
formed even then a peculiar district, supposing the coal in 
that country to be of the same epoch as in Europe and 
America; but as the strata became more varied, species 
were less widely diffused. Some of the saurians were in- 
habitants of both the Old and New World, while others lived 
in the latter only. In the tertiary periods the animals of 
Australia and America differed nearly as much from those 
of Europe as they do at the present day. The world was 
then, as now, divided into, great physical regions, each 
inhabited by a peculiar race of animals ; and even the dif- 
ferent species of shell-fish of the same sea were confined to 
certain shores. Of 405 species of shell-fish which inhabited 
the Atlantic Ocean during the early and middle part of the 
tertiary period, only twelve were common to the American 
and European coasts. In fact, the divisions of the animal 
.and vegetable creation into geographical districts had been 
in the latter periods- contemporaneous with the rise of the 
land, each portion of which as it rose above the deep had 
been clothed with a vegetation and peopled with creatures 
suited to its position with regard to the equatoT, and to the 
existing circumstances of the globe ; and the marine crea- 
tures had no doubt been divided into districts at the same 
periods, because the bed of the ocean had been subject to 
similar changes. 

The quantity of fossil remains is so great that probably not 
a particle of matter exists on the surface of the earth that has 
not at some time formed part of a living creature. Since the 
commencement of animated existence, zoophytes have built 
coral reefs extending hundreds of miles, and mountains of 
limestone are full of their remains all over the globe. Mines 
of shells are worked to make lime ; ranges of hills and rock, 
many hundred feet thick, are almost entirely composed of 
them, and they abound in every mountain-chain throughout 
the earth. The prodigious quantity of microscopic shells 
discovered by M. Ehrenberg is still more astonishing ; 
shells not larger than a grain of sand form entire mountains : 



32 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

a great portion of the hills of Casciano in Tuscany consist 
of chambered shells so minute that Signor Saldani collected 
10,454 of them from one ounce of stone. Chalk is often 
almost entirely composed of them. Tripoli, a fine powder 
long in use for polishing metals, is almost entirely composed 
of shells ; the polishing property is owing to their siliceous 
coats ; and there are even hills of great extent consisting of 
this substance, the debris of an infinite variety of micro- 
scopic insects. 

The facility with which many slates and clays are split is 
owing, in some instances, to layers of minute shells. Fossil 
fish are found in all parts of the world, and in all the fossili- 
ferous strata, with the exception of some of the lowest, but 
each great geological period had species of fish peculiar to 
itself. 

The remains of the great saurians are innumerable ; those 
of extinct quadrupeds are very numerous ; but there is no 
circumstance in the whole science of fossil geology more 
remarkable than the inexhaustible multitudes of fossil ele- 
phants that are found in Siberia. Their tusks have been an 
object of traffic in ivory for centuries, and in some places 
they have been in such prodigious quantities, that the ground 
is tainted with the smell of animal matter. Their huge 
skeletons are found from the borders of Europe through all 
northern Asia to its extremest point, and from the foot of the 
Altai mountains to the shores of the Frozen Ocean, a surface 
equal in extent to the whole of Europe. Some islands in 
the Arctic Sea are composed almost entirely of their remains, 
mixed with the bones of various other animals of living 
genera, but extinct species. 

Equally wonderful is the quantity of fossil plants that still 
remain, if it be considered that from the frail nature of many 
vegetable substances multitudes must have perished without 
leaving a trace behind. The vegetation that covered the 
terrestrial part of the globe previous to the formation of the 
carboniferous strata had far surpassed in exuberance the 
rankest tropical jungles. There are many coal-measures of 
great extent in various parts of the earth, especially in North 
America, where that of Pittsburg occupies an area of about 
fourteen thousand square miles ; and that in the Illinois is 
not much inferior to the area of all England. 

As coal is entirely a vegetable substance, some idea may 



FORM OF THE GREAT CONTINENT. 33 

be formed of the richness of the ancient flora ; in latter times 
it was less exuberant, and never has again been so luxu- 
riant, probably on account of the decrease of tempera- 
ture during the deposition of the tertiary strata, and in the 
glacial period which immediately preceded the creation of 
the present tribes of plants and animals. Even after their 
introduction the temperature must have been very low, but 
hy subsequent changes in the distribution of the sea and 
land the cold was gradually mitigated, till at last the climate 
of the northern hemisphere became what it is now. 

Such is the marvellous history laid open to us on the 
earth's surface. Surely it is not the heavens only that 
declare the glory of God,-T— the earth also proclaims His 
Handiwork! - 



CHAPTER n. 



FORM OF THE GREAT CONTINENT THE HIGH LANDS OF THE 

GREAT CONTINENT : THE ATLAS, SPANISH, FRENCH AND 

GERMAN MOUNTAINS — -THE ALPS, BALKAN, AND APENNINES. 

At the end of the tertiary period the earth was much in the 
same state that it is at present with regard to the distribution 
of land and water. The preponderance of land in the 
northern hemisphere indicates a prodigious accumulation of 
internal energy under these latitudes at a very remote geolo- 
gical period. The forces that raised the two great conti- 
nents above the deep, when viewed on a wide scale, must 
evidently have acted at right angles to one another, nearly 
parallel to the equator in the old continent, and in the direc- 
tion of the meridian in the new ; yet the structure of the op- 
posite coasts of the Atlantic points at some connection be- 
tween the two. 

The tendency of the land to assume a peninsular form is 
very remarkable; and it is still more so that almost all the 
peninsulas tend to the south, while to the north, with a very 
few exceptions, the two great continents terminate in a very 
broken line, and, as they sink under the Icy Ocean, the tops 
of their high lands and mountains rise above the waves and 



34 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Stud the coast with innumerable snow-clad rocks and islands. 
Eastern Asia is evidently continued in a subaqueous conti- 
nent from the Indian Ocean across the Pacific nearly to the 
west coast of America, of which New Holland, the Indian 
Archipelago, the islands of the Asiatic coast and of Oceanica, 
are the great table-lands and summits of its mountain-chains. 

Of the Polar lands little is known. Greenland probably 
is part of a continent, the domain of perpetual snow ; and the 
recent discovery of so extensive a mass of high volcanic land 
near the South Pole is an important event in the history of 
physical science, though the stern severity of the climate 
must for ever render it unfit for the abode of animated beings 
or even for the support of vegetable life. It seems to form 
a counterpoise to the preponderance of dry land in the 
northern hemisphere. There is something sublime in the 
contemplation of these lofty and unapproachable regions — 
the awful realm of ever-during ice and perpetual fire, whose 
year consists of one day and one night. The strange and 
terrible symmetry in the nature of the lands within the Polar 
circles, whose limits are to us a blank, where the antagonist 
principles of cold and heat meet in their utmost intensity, 
fills the mind with that awe which arises from the idea of 
the unknown and the indefinite. 

The mountains, from their rude and shattered condition, 
bear testimony to repeated violent convulsions similar to 
modern earthquakes ; while the high table-lands, and that 
succession of terraces by which the continents sink down from 
their mountain-ranges to the plains, to the ocean, and even 
below it, show also that the land must have been heaved up 
occasionally by slow and gentle pressure, such as appears 
now to be gradually elevating the coast of Scandinavia and 
many other parts of the earth. The periods in which these 
majestic operations were effected must have been incalcula- 
ble, since the dry land occupies an area of nearly thirty-eight 
millions of square miles. 

The division of the land is very unequal: the great conti^ 
nent has an area of about twenty-four millions of square miles, 
while the extent of America is about eleven millions, and 
that of Australia, with its islands, scarcely three ; Africa is 
more than three times the size of Europe, and Asia is more 
than four times as large. 

The peninsular form of the continents adds greatly to the 



FORM OF THE GREAT CONTINENT. 35 

extent of their coasts, of such importance to civilization and 
commerce. All the shores of Europe are deeply indented 
and penetrated by the Atlantic Ocean, which has formed a 
number of inland seas of great magnitude, so that it has a 
greater line of maritime coast compared with its size than 
any other quarter of the wqrld. The extent of coast from 
the Straits of Waigatz in the Polar Ocean to the Strait of 
Caffa at the entrance of the Sea of Azoff, is about seventeen 
thousand miles. The coast of Asia has been much worn by 
currents, and possibly also by the action of the ocean occa- 
sioned by the rotation of the earth from west to east. On 
the south and east especially it is indented by large seas, 
bays, and gulfs ; and the eastern shores are rugged, and en- 
compassed by chains of islands which render navigation dan- 
gerous. Its maritime coast is about thirty-three thousand 
miles in length. 

The coast of Africa, sixteen thousand miles long, is very 
entire, except perhaps at the Gulf of Guinea and in the Me- 
diterranean. The shores of North America have probably 
been much altered by the equatorial current and the gulf- 
stream. There cannot b«e a doubt that these currents, com- 
bined with volcanic action, have hollowed out the Gulf of 
Mexico, and separated the Antilles and Bahama Islands from 
the continent. The coast is less broken on the west, but in 
the Icy Ocean there is a labyrinth of gulfs, bays, and creeks. 
The shores of South America, on both sides, are very entire 
except towards Cape Horn and Southern Chili, where the 
tremendous surge and currents of the ocean in those high 
latitudes have eaten into the mountains, and produced end- 
less irregularities and fiords, which run far into the land. 
The whole continent of America has a sea-coast of thirty-one 
thousand miles. Thus it appears that the ratio of the num- 
ber of linear miles in the coast-line to that of square miles in 
the extent of surface, in each of these great portions of the 
globe, is 164 for Europe, 376 for Asia, 530 for Africa, and 
359 for America. Hence the proportion is most favourable 
to Europe with regard to civilization and commerce; America 
comes next, then Asia, and last of all Africa, which has 
every natural obstacle to contend with, from the extent 
and nature of its coasts, the desert character of the country, 
and the unwholesomeness of its climate, on the Atlantic coast 
at least. 



36 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The continents had been raised from the deep by a power- 
ful efTort of the internal forces acting under widely-extended 
regions, and the stratified crust of the earth either remained 
level, rose in undulations, or sank into cavities, according to 
its intensity. Some thinner portion of the earth's surface, 
giving way to the internal forces, had been rent into deep 
fissures, and the mountain masses had been raised by violent 
concussions, perceptible in the convulsed state of their strata. 
The centres of maximum energy are marked by the pyroge- 
nous rocks which generally form the nucleus or axis of the 
mountain masses, on whose flanks the stratified rocks are tilted 
at all angles to the horizon, whence declining on every side 
they sink to various depths or stretch to various distances on 
the plains. Enormous as the mountain-chains and table- 
lands are, and prodigious as the forces that elevated them, 
they bear a very small proportion to the mass of the level 
continents and to the vast power which raised them even to 
their inferior altitude. Both the high and the low lands had 
been elevated at successive periods ; some of the very highest 
mountain-chains are but of recent geological date, and some 
chains that are now far inland once stood up as islands 
above the ocean, while marine strata filled their cavities and 
formed round their bases. The influence of mountain-chains 
on the extent and form of the continents is beyond a doubt. 

Notwithstanding the various circumstances of their eleva- 
tion, there is everywhere a certain regularity of form in moun- 
tain masses, however unsymmetrical they may appear at firsts 
and rocks of the same kind have identical characters in every 
quarter of the globe. Plants and animals vary with climate, 
bat a granite mountain has the same peculiarities in the 
southern as in the northern hemisphere, at the equator as pear 
the poles. Single mountains, insulated on plains, are rare, 
except where they are volcanic ; they generally appear in 
groups intersected by valleys in every direction, and more 
frequently in extensive chains symmetrically arranged in a 
series of parallel ridges, separated by narrow longitudinal 
valleys, the highest and most rugged of which occupy the 
centre : when the chain is broad and of the first order in 
point of magnitude, peak after peak arise in endless succes- 
sion. The lateral ridges and valleys are constantly of less 
elevation, and are less bold, in proportion to their distance 
from the central mass, till at last the most remote ridges sink 



HIGH LANDS OF THE GREAT CONTINENT. 37 

down into gentle undulations. Extensive and lofty branches 
diverge from the principal chains at various angles, and stretch 
far into the plains. They are often as high as the chains 
from which they spring, and it happens not unfrequently that 
these branches are united by transverse ridges, so that the 
country is often widely covered by a network of mountains, 
and, at the point where these offsets diverge, there is fre- 
quently a knot of mountains spreading over hundreds of 
square miles. The circumstances of elevation are not the 
only causes of that variety observed in the summits of moun- 
tain-chains ; a very minute difference in the composition and 
internal structure of a rock has great influence upon its ge- 
neral form, and on the degree and manner in which it is worn 
by the weather. 

One side of a mountain-range is usually more precipitous 
than the other, but there is nothing in which the imagination 
misleads the judgment more than in estimating the steepness 
of a declivity. In the whole range of the Alps there is not 
a single rock which has 1600 feet of perpendicular height, 
or a vertical slope of 90^. The declivity of Mont Blanc to- 
wards the Allee Blanche, precipitous as it seems, does not 
amount to 45°; and the mean inclination of the Peak of Te- 
neriffe, according to Baron Humboldt, is only 12° 30'. The 
Silla of Caraccas, which rises precipitously from the Carib- 
bean Sea, at an angle of 53° 28', to the height of between 
sixand. seven thousand feet, is a majestic instance of the 
nearest approach to perpendicularity of any great height yet 
known. 

Immediately connected with the mountains are the high 
table-lands which form so conspicuous a feature in the Asiatic 
and American continents. These perpetual storehouses of 
the waters send their streams to refresh the plains, and to 
afford a highway between the nations. Table-lands of less 
elevation, sinking in terraces of lower and lower level, con- 
stitute ihe links between the high ground and the low, the 
mountains and the plains, and thus maintain the continuity 
of the land. They frequently are of the richest soil, and en- 
joy the most genial climate, afibrding a delightful and pic- 
turesque abode to man, though the plains are his principal 
dwelling. Sloping imperceptibly from the base of the infe- 
rior table-lands, or from the last undulations of the mountains 
to the ocean, they carry off the superfluous waters. Fruit- 
4 



38 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

fulness and sterility vary their aspect ; immense tracts of the 
ricjiest soil are favoured by climate and hardly require cul- 
ture; a greater portion is only rendered productive by hard 
labour, compelling man to fulfil his destiny; while vast re- 
gions are doomed to perpetual barrenness, iiever gladdened 
by a shower. 

The form of the great continent has been determined by 
an immense zone of mountains and table-lands, lying between 
the 30th and 40th or 45th parallels of north latitude, which 
stretches across it from W.S.W. to E.N.E., from the coasts 
of Barbary and Portugal on the Atlantic Ocean to the farthest 
extremity of Asia at Behring's Straits in the North Pacific. 
North of this lies an enormous plain, extending almost from 
the Pyrenees to the utmost part of Asia, the greatest portion 
of which is a dead level, or low undulations, uninterrupted, 
except by the Scandinavian and British system on the north, 
and the Ural chain, which is of small elevation. The low 
lands south of the mountainous zone are much indented by 
the ocean, and of the most diversified aspect. But much the 
greater part of the ilat country lying between the China Sea 
and the river Indus is of the most exuberant fertility, while 
that between the Persian Gulf and the foot of the Atlas is, 
with some happy exceptions, one of the most desolate tracts 
on the earth. These southern lowlands, too, are broken by 
a few mountain systems of considerable extent and height. 

-The Atlas and Spanish mountains form the western extre- 
mity of that great zone of high lands that girds the old con- 
tinent almost throughout its extent. These two mountain 
systems were certainly at one time united ; and, from their 
geological formation, and also the parallelism of their moun- 
tain-chains, they must have been elevated by forces acting 
in the same direction, — now, indeed, the Straits of Gibral- 
tar, a sea-filled chasm of unfathomable depth, divides them. 

A very elevated and continuous mountainous region ex- 
tends in a broad belt along the north-west of Africa, from 
the promontory of Gher on the Atlantic to the Gulf of Sidra 
on the Mediterranean, incloising all the high lands of Mo- 
rocco, Algiers, and Tunis. It is bounded by the Atlantic 
and Mediterranean, and insulated from the rest of Africa by 
the Sahara desert. 

This mountain system consists of three parts. The chain 
of the Greater Atlas, which is farthest inland, extends from 



THE SPANISH MOUNTAINS. 39 

Souse near the Atlantic to the Lesser Syrte, and in Morocco 
forms a mountain-knot 15,000 feet high, perpetually covered 
with snow. 

The Lesser Atlas begins at Cape Kotes opposite to Gib- 
raltar, and keeps parallel to the Mediterranean till it attains 
the Gharian range in Tripoli, the last and lowest of the 
Little Atlas, which runs due east in a uniformly diminishing 
line till it vanishes in the plains of the Great Syrte. That 
long, rugged, but lower chain of parallel ridges and groups, 
which forms the bold coasts of the Straits of Gibraltar and 
the Mediterranean, is only a portion of the Lesser Atlas, 
which rises above it majestically, covered with snow. The 
flanks of the mountains are generally covered with forests, 
but their summit is one uninterrupted line of bare inaccessi- 
ble rocks, and they are rent by fissures frequently not more 
than a few feet wide, — a peculiar feature of the whole 
system. _ 

The Middle Atlas, lying between the two great chains, con- 
sists of a table-land, rich in valleys and rivers, which rises in 
successive terraces to the foot of the Greater Atlas, separated" 
by ranges of hills parallel to it. This wide and extensive 
region has a delightful climate, abounds in magnificent 
fprests, and the valleys are full of vitality. The crest of the 
Atlas is of granite and crystalline strata ; their flanks and 
lower ranges are sandstone and limestone, on which the ter- 
tiary strata rest. 

. The Spanish peninsula consists chiefly of a table-land tra- 
versed by parallel ranges of mountains, and surrounded by 
the sea, except where it. is separated from France by the 
Pyrenees, which extend from the Mediterranean to the Bay 
of Biscay, but are continued by the Cantabrian chain to 
Cape Finisterre on the Atlantic. 

The Pyrenean chain is of moderate height at its extremi- 
ties, but its summit maintains a waving line whose mean 
altitude is 7000 feet ; it rises to a greater height on the east ; 
its highest point is the Pic du Midi, 11,000 feet above the 
sea. The snow lies deep on these mountains during the 
greater part of the year, and is perpetual on the highest 
parts ; but the glaciers, which are chiefly on the northern 
side, are neither so numerous nor so large as in the Alps. 

The greatest breadth of this range is about sixty miles, 
and its length twd hundred and seventy. It is so steep on 



40 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the French side, so rugged, and so notched, that from the 
plains below its summits look like the teeth of a saw, 
whence the term Sierra has been appropriated to mountains 
of this form. On the Spanish side, gigantic sloping offsets, 
separated by deep precipitous valleys, penetrate to the banks 
of the Ebro. All the Spanish mountains are torn by deep 
crievices, the beds of torrents and rivers. 

The interior of Spain is a table-land, with an area of 
93,000 square miles, nearly equal to half of the peninsula. 
It dips to the Atlantic from its western side, where its alti- 
tude is about 2500 feet. There it is bounded by the Iberian 
mountains, which Ijegin at the point where the Pyrenees 
take the name of the Cantabrian chain, and run in a tor- 
tuous south-easterly direction through all Spain, constituting 
the western boundary of Valencia and Murcia, and sending 
many branches through those provinces to the Mediterra- 
nean. Its most elevated point is the Sierra Urbian, 7272 
feet high. - 

Four nearly parallel ranges of mountains originate in this 
limiting chain, running from N.E. to S.W. diagonally across 
the peninsula to the Atlantic. Of these the high Castilian 
mountains and the Sierra di Toledo cross the table-land ; 
the Sierra Morena, so called from the dingy colour of its 
forests of Hermes oak, on the southern edge ; and, lastly, 
the Sierra Nevada, though only a hundred miles long and 
fifty broad, the finest range of mountains in Europe after the 
Alps, traverses the plains of Andalusia and Grenada. The 
table-land is monotonous and bare of trees ; the plains of 
Old Castile are as naked as the steppes of Siberia, and un- 
cultivated except along the banks of the rivers. Corn and 
wine are produced in abundance on the wide plains of New 
Castile and Estremadura ; other placed serve for pasture. 
The table-land becomes more fertile as it descends towards 
Portugal, which is altogether more productive than Spain, 
though the maritime provinces of the later on the Mediter- 
ranean are luxuriant and beautiful with a semi-tropical vege- 
tation. 

Granite, crystalline strata, and primary fossiliferous rocks 
prevail chiefly in the Spanish mountains, and give them 
their peculiar bold serrated aspect. The tracts between the 
parallel ranges through which the great Spanish rivers flow 
to the Atlantic appear to have been at one time the basins 
of lakes. 



THE FRENCH AND GERMAN MOUNTAINS. 4] 

The mass of the high land is continued through the south 
of France, at a much lower elevation, by chains of hills and 
table-lands, the most remarkable of which are the Montagnes 
Noires, and the great platform of Auvergne, once the theatre 
of violent volcanic action. It continued from the beginning 
to the middle of the tertiary period, so that there are cra- 
ters of various ages and perfect form : some of the highest, 
as the Pay de Dome, 5000 feet high, are trachytic craters of 
elevation ; Mont Dore, 6200 feet high, is probably the most 
elevated. These volcanic mountains of Auvergne, and the 
Cevennes, above 6000 feet high, are the most remarkable of 
the French system ; the offsets of the latter reach the right 
bank of the Rhone and the Jura mountains of the Alpine 
range. In fact, the French mountains are the link between 
the more elevated masses of western and eastern Europe. 

The eastern and highest part of the European portion of 
the mountain-zone begins to rise above the low lands about 
the 52d parallel of north latitude, ascending by terraces, 
groups, and chains of mountains, through six or seven de- 
grees of latitude, till it reaches its highest point in the great 
range of the Alps and Balkan. The descent on the south 
side of this lofty mass is much more rapid and abrupt, and 
the immediate offsets from the Alps shorter ; but, taking a 
very general view, the Apennines and mountains of north- 
ern Sicily, those of Greece and the southern part of Turkey 
in Europe, with all the islands of the adjacent coasts, are 
but outlying members of thegeneral protuberance. 

The principal chain of the Hyrcanian mountains, the Su- 
detes, and the Cairpathian mountains, form the northern 
boundary of these high lands : the first, consisting of three 
parallel ridges, extends from the right bank of the Rhine to 
the centre of Germany, about 51° or 52° of N. lat., with a 
mean breadth of about a hundred miles, and terminates in 
the knot of the Fichtelberge, covering an area of 9000 square 
miles, on the confines of Bavaria and Bohemia. The Sudetes 
begin on the east of this group, and, after a circuit of three 
hundred miles round Bohemia, terminate at the small ele- 
vated plain of the Upper Oder, which connects them with 
the Carpathian mountains. No part of these limiting ranges 
attain the height of 5000 feet, except the Carpathians, some 
of which are very high. They consist of mountain groups, 

united by elevated plains, rather than of a single chain : the 

4* 



42 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Tatra mountains, bisected by the 20th meridian, is their 
loftiest point. This range is high also in Transylvania, 
before it reaches the Danube, which divides it from a 
secondary branch of the Balkan. Spurs decline in undulations 
from these limiting chains on the great northern plain, and 
the country to the south, intervening between them and the 
Alps, is covered with an intricate net- work of mountains and 
plains of moderate elevation. 

The higher Alps, which form the western crest of the ele- 
vated zone, begin at the Capo della Melle, on the Gulf of 
Genoa, and bend round by the west and north to Mont 
Blanc; then turning E.N, E. they run through the Grisons 
and Tyrol to the Great Glockner in 40° 7' N. lat. and 12° 
43' E. long., where the higher Alps terminate a course 420 
miles long. All this chain is lofty ; much of it is above the 
line of perpetual congelation, but the most elevated part lies 
between the Col de la Seigne, on the west shoulder of 
Mont Blanc, and the Simplon. The highest mountains in 
Europe-are comprised within this space, not more than sixty 
miles long, where Mont Blanc, the highest of all, has an 
absolute elevation of 15,730 feet. The central ridge of the 
higher Alps is jagged with peakis, pyramids, and needles of 
bare and almost perpendicular rock, rising from fields of per- 
petual snow and rivers of ice to an elevation of 14,000 feet. 
Many parallel chains and groups, alike rugged and snowy, 
press on the principal crest, and send their flanks far into 
the lower grounds. Innumerable secondary branches, hardly 
lower than the main crest, diverge from it in various direc- 
tions ; of these the chain of the Bernese Alps, is the highest 
and most extensive. It breaks off at St. Gothard, in a line 
parallel to the principal chain, separates the Valais from the 
canton of Bern, and wnth its ramifications forms one of the 
most remarkable groups of mountain scenery in Europe. 
Its endless maze of sharp ridges and bare 'peaks, mixed with 
gigantic masses of pure snow fading coldly serene into the 
blue horizon, present a scene of sublime quiet and repose, 
unbroken but by the avalanche or the thunder. 

At the Great Glockner, the range of the Alps, hitherto 
undivided, splits into two branches, the Noric and Carnic 
Alps : the latter is the continuation of the chief stem. Never 
rising to the height of perpetual snow, it separates the Tyrol 
and Upper Carinthia from the Venetian States, and, taking 



THE ALPS. 43 

the name of the Julian Alps at Mont Terglou, 9380 feet 
above the sea, runs east till it joins the eastern Alps or Bal- 
kan, under the l8th meridian. Offsets from this chain 
cover all the neighbouring countries. 

It is difficult to estimate the width of the Alpine chain ; 
that of the higher Alps is about a hundred miles ; it in- 
creases to a hundred and fifty east of the Grisons, and 
amounts to two hundred between the 15th and 16th meri- 
dians, but is not more than eighty at its junction with the 
Balkan. 

The Stelvio, 9174 feet above the sea, is the highest car- 
riage-pass in these mountains. That of St. Gothard is the 
only one which goes directly over the crest of the Alps. 
Passes very rarely go over the summit of a mountain ; they 
generally cross the water-shed, ascending by the valley of a 
torrent, and descending by a similar path on the other side. 

The frequent occurrence of extensive deep lakes is a 
peculiar feature in European mountains, rarely to be met 
with in the Asiatic system, except in the Altai, and on the 
elevated plains. 

With the exception of the Jura, whose pastoral summit is 
about 3000 feet above the sea, there are no elevated table- 
lands in the Alps ; the tabular form, so eminently character- 
istic of the Asiatic high lands, begins in the Balkan. The 
Oriental peninsula rises by degrees from the Danube to Bos- 
nia and Upper Macedonia, which are some hundred feet 
above the sea ; and the Balkan extends six hundred miles 
along this elevated mass, from the Julian Alps to Cape Emi- 
nek on the Black Sea. It begins by a table-land seventy 
miles long, traversed by low hills, ending towards Albania 
and Myritida in a limestone wall from six to seven thousand 
feet high. Rugged mountains, all but impassable, succeed 
to this, in which the domes and needles of the Schandach, 
or ancient Scamus, are covered with perpetual snow. An- 
other table-land follows, whose marshy surface is bounded 
by mural precipices ending at Mount Arbelus, 9000 feet 
high, near the town of Sophia. There the Hemus, or Bal- 
kan properly so called, begins, and runs in parallel ridges, 
separated by fertile longitudinal valleys, to the Black Sea, 
dividing the plains between the Lower Danube and the Pro- 
pontis into nearly equal parts. The central ridge rises at 
once in a wall 4000 feet high, passable in few places ; and 



44 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

where there is no lateral ridge the precipices descend at 
once to the plains. 

The Balkan is everywhere rent by terrific fissures across 
the chains and table-lands, so deep and narrow that day- 
light is almost excluded. These chasms afford the safest 
passes across the range ; the others, along the faces of the 
precipices, are frightful. 

The Mediterranean is the southern boundary of the elevated 
zone of Eastern Europe, whose last offsets rise in rocky 
islands along the coasts. The crystalline mountains of Sar- 
dinia and Corsica are outlying members of the Maritime 
Alps, while shorter offsets end in the plains of Lombardy, 
forming the magnificent scenery of the Italian lakes. Even 
the Apennines, whose elevation has given its form to the 
peninsula of Italy, is but a secondary, on a greater scale, to 
the broad central band, as well as the mountains and high 
land in the north of Sicily, which form the continuation of 
the Calabrian chain. 

The Apennines, beginning at the Maritime Alps, inclose 
the Gulf of Genoa, and run through the centre of Italy in 
parallel ranges to the middle of Calabria, where they split 
into two branches, one of which goes to Capo de Leuca on 
the Gulf of Torento, the other to Cape Spartivento in the 
Straits of Messina. The whole length is about eight hun- 
dred miles. None of the Apennines come within the line 
of perpetual snow, though it lies nine months in the year on 
the Gran Sasso d'ltalia, 9521 feet high in Abruzza Ulteriore. 

Offsets from the Julian and Eastern Alps render Dalmatia 
and Albania perhaps the most rugged tract in Europe ; and 
the Pindus, which forms the water-shed of Greece, diverges 
from the latter chain, and, running south two hundred miles, 
separates Albania from Macedonia and Thessaly. 

Greece is a country of mountains, and, although none are 
perpetually covered with snow, it lies nine months on several 
of their summits. The chains terminate in strongly pro- 
jecting headlands, which reach far into the sea, and reappear 
in the numerous islands and rocks which stud that deeply 
indented coast. The Grecian mountains, like the Balkan, 
are torn by transverse fractures. The celebrated Pass of 
Thermopylee, the [defile of Blatamana, and the Gulf of 
Salonica are examples. The Adriatic, the Dardanelles, and 
the Sea of Marmora limit the secondaries of the southern 
part of the Balkan. 



ICE IN THE ALPS. 45 

The valleys in the Alps are long and narrow ; those among 
the mountains of Turkey in Europe and Greece are mostly 
caldron-shaped hollows, often inclosed by mural rocks. 
Many of these cavities of great size lie along the foot of the 
Balkan. In the Morea they are so encompassed by moun- 
tains that the water has no escape but through the porous 
soil. They consist of tertiary strata, which had formed the 
bottom of lakes. Caldron-shaped valleys occur in most 
volcanic countries, as Sicily, Italy, and central France. 

The table-lands which constitute the tops of mountains or 
of mountain-chains are of a different character from those 
terraces by which the high lands slope to the low. The 
former are on a small scale in Europe, and of a forbidding 
aspect, with the exception of the Jura, which is pastoral ; 
whereas the latter are almost always habitable and cultivated. 
The mass of high land in South-Eastern Europe shelves on 
the north to the great plain of Bavaria, 3000 feet high ; 
Bohemia, which slopes from 1500 to 900, and Hungary, 
from 4000 above the sea to 300. The descent on the south 
of the Alps is six or seven times more rapid, because the 
distance from the axis of the chain is shorter. 

It is scarcely possible to estimate the quantity of ice in the 
Alps ; it is said, however, that, independent of the glaciers 
in the Grisons, there are 1500 square miles of ice in the 
Alpine range, from eighty to six hundred feet thick. Some 
glaciers have been permanent and stationary in the Alps 
time immemorial, while others now occupy ground formerly 
bearing corn or covered with trees, which the irresistible 
force of the ice has swept away. These ice rivers, formed 
on the snow-clad summits of the mountains, fill the hollows 
and high valleys, hang on the declivities, or descend by 
their weight through the transverse valleys to the plains, 
where they are cut short by the increased temperature, and 
deposit those accumulations of rocks and rubbish, called 
moraines, which had fallen upon them from the heights 
above. In the Alps the glaciers move at the rate of from 
twelve to twenty feet annually, and, as in rivers, the motion 
is most rapid in the centre. They advance or retreat ac- 
cording to the mildness or severity of the season, but they 
have been subject to cycles of unknown duration. From 
the moraines, as well as the striae engraven on the rocks over 
which they have passed, M. Agassiz has ascertained that the 



46 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

valley of Chamouni was at one time occupied by a glacier 
that had moved towards the Col di Balme. A moraine 
2000 feet above the Rhone at St. Maurice shows that at a 
remote period glaciers had covered Switzerland to the height 
of 2155 feet above the Lake of Geneva. 

Their increase is now limited by various circumstances — 
as the mean temperature of the earth, which is always above 
the freezing-point in those latitudes ; excessive evaporation ; 
and blasts of hot air, which occur at all heights, in the night 
as well as in the day, from some unknown cause. They 
are not peculiar to the Alps, but have been observed also 
on the glaciers of the Andes. Besides, the greater the 
quantity of snow in the higher Alps, the lower is the glacier 
forced into the plains. 

Granite no doubt forms the base of the mountain system 
of Eastern Europe,, though it more rarely comes into view 
than might have been expected. Crystalline schists of 
various kinds are enormously developed, and generally 
form the most elevated pinnacles of the Alpine crest and 
its offsets ; but the secondary fossiliferous strata constitute 
the chief mass, and often rise to the highest summits ; 
indeed, secondary limestones occupy a great portion of the 
high land of Eastern Europe. Calcareous rocks form two 
great mountain-zones on each side of the cen4:ral chain of 
the Alps, and rise occasionally to altitudes of ten or twelve 
thousand feet. They constitute the central range of the 
Apennines, and fill the greater part of Sicily. They are 
extensively developed in Turkey in Europe, where the 
plateau of Bpsnia with its high lands on the south, part of 
Macedonia, and Albania with its islands, are principally 
composed of them. Tertiary strata, of great thickness, rest 
on the flanks of the Alps, and rise in some places to a height 
of five thousand feet. Zones of the older Pleiocene period 
flank the Apennines on each side, filled with organic re- 
mains ; and half of Sicily is covered with the newer Pleio- 
cene strata. 

From numerous dislocations in the strata, the Alps ap- 
pear to have been heaved up by many violent and repeated 
convulsions, separated by intervals of repose, and different 
parts of the chain have been raised at different times ; for 
example, the Maritime Alps and the south-western part of 
the Jura Mountains were raised previous to the formation of 



TABLE-LANDS OF ASIA. 47 

the chalk : but the tertiary period appears to have been that 
of the greatest commotions ; for nearly two-thirds of the 
lands of Europe have risen since the beginning of that epoch, 
and those that existed then acquired additional height, 
though some sank below their original level. During that 
time the Alps acquired an additional elevation of between 
two and three thousand feet ; Mont Blanc then reached its 
present altitude ; the Apennines rose one or two thousand 
feet higher ; and the Carpathians seem to have gained 
an accession of height about the same period. That part of 
the Alpine chain lying between Mont Blanc and Vienna is 
said to have acquired its last accession of height since the 
seas were inhabited by the existing species of animals. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE HIGH LANDS OF THE GKEAT CONTINENT (cOTjimMgC?)— THE 
CAIJCASUS^ THE WESTERN ASIATIC TABLE-LAND AND ITS 
MOUNTAINS. 

The Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmora form but a small 
break in the mighty girdle of the old continent, which again 
appears in immense table-lands passing through the centre 
of Asia, of such magnitude that they occupy nearly two-fifths 
of the continent. Here every thing is on a much grander 
scale than in Europe ; the table-lands rise above the mean 
height of the European mountains, and the mountains them- 
selves that gird and traverse them surpass those of every other 
country in altitude. The most barren deserts are here to be 
met with, as well as the most luxuriant productions of animal 
and vegetable life. The earliest records of the human race 
are found in this cradle of civilization, and monuments still 
remain which show the skill and power of those nations which 
have passed away, but whose moral influence is still visible 
in their descendants. Customs, manners, and even preju- 
dices, carry us back to times beyond the record of history, 
or even of tradition; while the magnitude with which the 
natural world is here developed evinces the tremendous forces 
that must have been in action at epochs immeasurably ante- 
rior to the existence of man. 



48 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The gigantic mass of high land which extends for 60Q0 
miles between the Mediterranean and the Pacific is 2000 
miles broad at its eastern extremity, 700 to 1000 in the mid- 
dle, and somewhat less at its western termination. Colossal 
mountains and elevated terraces form the edges of these lofty 
plains. 

Between the 47th and 68th eastern meridians, w^here the 
low plains of Hindostan and Bucharia press upon the table- 
land and reduce its width to 700 or 1000 miles, it is divided 
into two parts by an enormous knot of mountains formed by 
the meeting of the Hindoo Coosh, the Himalaya, the Thsung- 
ling, and the transverse ranges of the Beloot Tagh, or Cloudy 
Mountains: these two parts differ in height, form, and mag- 
nitude. 

The western portion, which is the table-land of Persia or 
plateau of Iran, is oblong, extending from the shores of Asia 
Minor to the Hindoo Coosh and the Solimaun range, which 
skirts the right bank of the Indus. It occupies an area of 
1,700,000 square miles, generally about 4000 feet above the 
sea, and in some places 7000. The oriental plateau or table- 
land of Tibet, much the largest, has an area of 7,600,000 
square miles, and a mean altitude of 14,000 feet, and in 
some parts of Tibet an absolute altitude of 17,000 feet. 

As the table-lands extend from S.W. to N.E., so also do 
the principal mountain-chains, as well those which bound the 
high lands as those which traverse them, with the exception 
of the Beloot Tagh,or Bolor, and the Solimaun chains, which 
run from north to south. The first is the western limit of the 
oriental plateau, the other the boundary of the table-land of 
Persia. 

The lofty range of the Caucasus, which extends 700 miles 
between the Black and Caspian Seas, is an outlying member 
of the Asiatic high lands. Offsets diverge like ribs from each 
side of the central crest, which penetrate the Russian steppes 
on one hand, and on the other cross the plains of Kara, or val- 
ley of the Kour and Rioni, and unite the Caucasus to the table- 
land. Some parts of these mountains are more than 15,000 
feet high ; the Elbrouz, on the western border of Georgia, is 
17,796 feet. The central part of the chain is full of glaciers, 
and the limit of perpetual snow is at the altitude of 11,000 
feet, \vhich is higher than in any other chain, except the Hi- 
malaya. 



THE CAUCASUS. 49 

Anatolia, the most western part of the table-land of Iran, 
3000 feet above the sea, is traversed by short chains and 
broken groups of mountains, separated by fertile valleys 
which sink rapidly towards the archipelago and end in pro- 
montories and islands along the shores of Asia Minor, which 
is a country abounding in vast luxuriant but solitary plains, 
watered by broad rivers. Single mountains of volcanic for- 
mation are conspicuous objects on the table-land of Anatolia, 
which is rich in pasture, though much of the soil is saline 
and covered with lakes and marshes. A triple range of lime- 
stone mountains, 6000 or 7000 feet high, divided by narrow 
but beautiful valleys, is the limit of the Anatolian table-land 
along the shores of the Black Sea. They are covered with 
forests to the height of 4500 feet, and broken by wooden 
glens, having a narrow coast, except near Trebizond, where 
it is broad and picturesque. The high land is bounded on 
the south by the serrated snowy range of the Taurus, which, 
beginning in Rhodes, Cos, and other islands in the Mediter- 
ranean, fills the south-western parts of Asia Minor with rami- 
fications, and, after following the sinuosities of the iron-bound 
coast of Kararaania in a single lofty range, extends at Sami- 
sat, where the Euphrates has pierced a way through this 
stony girdle. 

About the 50th meridian the table-land is compressed to 
nearly half its width, and there the lofty mountainous regions 
of Armenia, Kourdisl:an, and Azerbijan tower higher and 
higher between the Black Sea, the Caspian, and the Gulf of 
Alexandretta in the Mediterranean. Here the cold treeless 
plains of Armenia, the earliest abode of man, 7000 feet above 
the sea, bear no traces of the garden of Eden; but Mount 
Ararat, on which the ark is said to have rested, stands a soli- 
tary majestic volcanic cone 17,260 feet above the sea, 
shrouded in perpetual snow. Though high and cold, the 
soil of Armenia is better than that of Anatolia, and is better 
cultivated. It shelves on the north in luxuriant and beauti- 
ful declivities to the low and undulating valley of Kara, south 
of the Caucasus; and on the other hand, the broad and lofty 
belt of the Kourdistan Mountains, rising abruptly in many 
parallel ranges from the plains of Mesopotamia, form its 
southern limit, and spread their ramifications wide over its 
surface. They are rent by deep ravines, and in many places 
are so rugged that communication between the villages is 
5 



50 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

always difficult, and in winter impracticable from the depth 
of snow. The line of perpetual congelation is decided and 
even along their summit ; their flanks are wooded, and the 
valleys populous and fertile. 

A thousand square miles of Kourdistan is occupied by the 
brackish lake Van, which is seldom frozen, though 5467 
feet above the sea and surrounded by lofty mountains. 

The Persian mountains, of which the Elbrouz is the prin- 
cipal chain, extend along the northern brink of the plateau, 
from Armenia, almost parallel to the shores of the Caspian 
Sea, maintaining a considerable elevation up to the volcanic 
mountain Demavend, near Tehran, their culminating point, 
14,600 feet high, which, though 90 miles inland, is a land- 
mark to sailors on the Caspian. Elevated offsets of these 
mountains cover the volcanic table-land of Azerbijan, the 
fire country of Zoroaster, and one of the best provinces in 
Persia; there the Koh Savalan elevates its volcanic cone 
12,000 feet. Beautiful plains, pure streams, and peaceful 
glades, interspersed with villages, lie among the mountains, 
and the Vale of Khosran Shah, a picture of sylvan beauty, is 
celebrated as one of the five paradises of Persian poetry. 
The vegetation at the foot of these mountains on the shores 
of the Caspian has all the exuberance of a tropical jungle. 
The Elbrouz loses its height to the east of Demavend, and 
then joins the mountains of Khorasan and the Parapamisan 
range, which appear to be chains of mountains when viewed 
from the low plains of Khorasan and Balkh, but on the 
table-land of Persia they merely form a broad hilly country 
of rich soil till they join the Hindoo Coosh. 

The table-land of Iran is bounded, for a thousand miles 
along the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, by a mountainous 
belt of from three to seven parallel ranges, having an average 
width of 200 miles, and extending from the extremity of the 
Kourdistan Mountains to the mouth of the Indus. The 
Lasistan Mountains, which form the northern part of this 
belt, and bound the vast level plain of the Tigris, rise from 
it in a succession of high table-lands divided by very rugged 
mountains, the last ridge of which, mostly covered with 
snow, abuts on the table-land of Persia. Oaks clothe their 
flanks ; the valleys are of generous soil, verdant and culti- 
vated ; and many rivers flow through them to swell the 
stream of the Tigris. Insulated hill forts, from 2000 to 



BARRENNESS OF PERSIAN SOIL. 51 

5000 feet high, occur in this country, with flat cultivated 
tops some miles in extent, accessible only by ladders or 
holes cut in their precipitous sides. These countries are 
full of ancient inscriptions and remains of antiquity. The 
moisture decreases more and more south from Shiraz, and 
then the parallel ridges, repulsive in aspect and difficult to 
pass, are separated by arid longitudinal valleys, which 
ascend like steps from the narrow shores of the Persian 
Gulf to the table-land. The coasts of the gulf are burning- 
hot sandy solitudes, so completely barren that the country 
from Bassora to the Indus, a distance of 1200 miles, is a 
sterile waste. In the few favoured spots on the terraces 
where water occurs there is vegetation, and the beauty of 
these valleys is enhanced by surrounding sterility. 

With the exception of Mazenderan, and the other pro- 
vinces on the Caspian and in the Parapamisan range, Per- 
sia is arid, possessing few perennial springs, and not one 
great river ; in fact, three-tenths of the country is desert, 
and the table-land is nearly a wide scene of desolation. A 
great salt desert occupies 27,000 square miles between Irak 
and Khorasan, of which the soil is stiff clay covered with 
efflorescence of common salt and nitre, often an inch thick, 
varied only by a few saline plants and patches of verdure 
in the hollows. This dreary waste joins the large sandy 
and equally dreary desert of Kerman. Kelat, the capital of 
Belochistan, is 7000 feet above the level of the sea, round 
which there is cultivation, but the greater part of that coun- 
try is a lifeless plain, over which the brick-red sand is drifted 
by the north wind into ridges like the waves of the sea, 
often twelve feet high, without a vestige of vegetation. The 
blast of the desert, whose hot and pestilential breath is fatal 
to man and animals, renders these dismal sands impassable 
at certain seasons. 

Barren lands or bleak downs prevail at the foot of the 
Lukee and Solimaun ranges of bare porphyry and sandstone, 
which skirt the eastern edge of the table-land and dip to the 
plains of Indus. In Afghanistan there is cultivation chiefly 
on the banks of the streams that flow into Lake Zorah, but 
vitality returns towards the north-east. The plains and 
valleys among the oflfsets from the Hindoo Coosh are of 
surpassing loveliness, and combine the richest peaceful beauty 
with the majesty of the snow-capped mountains. 



52 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE HIGH LANDS OF THE GREAT CONTINENT (continued) 

. THE ORIENTAL TABLE-LAND AND ITS MOUNTAINS. 

The oriental plateau, or table-land of Tibet, is an irregular 
four-sided mass stretching from S.W. to N.E., inclosed 
and traversed by the highest mountains in the world. It is 
separated from the table-land of Persia by the Hindoo Coosh, 
a branch of the Himalaya, which occupies the terrestrial 
isthmus between the low lands of Hindostan and Bucharia. 
The cold dreary plateau of Tibet is separated on the south 
from the glowing luxuriant plains of Hindostan by the 
Himalaya, which extends 2800 miles from the western 
extremity of the Hindo Coosh in Cabulistan to the Gulf of 
Tonkin in China, The chain of the Altai, to the north, 
4500 miles long, divides the table-land from the deserts of 
Asiatic Siberia, and, stretching to the sea at Okhotzk under 
various names, it bends to the N.N. E., and terminates at 
Behring's Straits, the utmost extremity of Asia. The table- 
land terminates in the east, partly in the long Chinese chain 
of the Khing-Khan and Inshan Mountains, which stretch 
from the Altai' range to the great bend in the Yellow River 
in China, and farther south by the nameless and almost 
unknown magnificent mountains in the western provinces 
of the Chinese empire. On the west the table-land has its 
limits in the Beloot Tagh, or Cloudy Mountains, the Tartash 
Tagh of the natives, a transverse range, which leaves the 
Hindoo Coosh nearly at a right angle about the 72d degree 
of E, longitude, and, pursuing a northerly direction, is sup- 
posed to unite the latter chain to that of the Altai ; its offsets, 
at least, extend widely in that direction. It forms magni- 
ficent mountain-knots with the diagonal chains of the table- 
land, and is the water-shed between Independent and Chi- 
nese Tourkistan, or Tartary. It descends in a succession 
of tiers or terraces through the countries of Bokhara and 
Balkh to the deep cavity in which the Caspian Sea and the 
Sea of Azoff'lie, and forms, with the Paralasa, the Solimaun 



THE HIMALAYA. 53 

range, and the Ural, a singular exception to the general 
parallelism of Asiatic mountains. Two narrow difficult 
passes lead over the Beloot Tagh from the low plains of 
Bucharia. and Independent Tourkistan to Kashgar and Yar- 
kand, on the table-land in Chinese Tartary. 

The table-land itself is crossed diagonally from west to 
east by two great chains of mountains. The Kuen-leun, or 
Chinese range, begins about 35° 30' N. lat. at the moun- 
tain-knot formed by the Hindoo Coosh and Himalaya, and, 
running eastward, it terminates south of the Gulf of Petcheli, 
and covers a great part of the western provinces of China 
with its branches. The Thian-shan, or Celestial Mountains, 
lie more to the north ; they begin at the Beloot Tagh, and, 
running along the 42d parallel, sink to the desert of the 
Great Gobi, about the centre, of the plateau, but, rising 
again, they end in various branches in China. The latter 
chain is exceedingly volcanic, and, though so far inland, 
pours forth lava, and exhibits all the other phenomena of 
volcanic districts. 

Tibet is inclosed between the Himalaya and the Kuen- 
leun ; Tungut, or Chinese Tartary, lies between the latter 
chain and the Celestial Mountains, and Zungary, or Mon- 
golia, between the Celestial range and the Altai". The 
Himalaya and Altai" ranges diverge in their easterly courses 
so that the table-land, which is only from 700 to 1000 miles 
wide at its western extremity, is 2000 between the Chinese 
province of Yunnan and the country of the Mantshu Ton- 
guses. . ^ 

Of all these vast chains of mountains, the Himalaya and 
its principal branch the Hindoo Coosh, are best known ; 
though even of these a great part has never been explored, 
on account of their enormous height and the depth of snow, 
which make it impossible to approach the central ridge, 
except in a very few places. 

The range consists of three parts: the Hindoo Coosh, or 
Indian Caucasus, which extends from the Parapamisan range 
in Afghanistan to Cashmere ; the Himalaya, or Imaus of the 
ancients, which stretches from the valley of Cashmere to the 
sources of the Brahmapootra; and, lastly, the mountains of 
Bhotan and Assam, — the three making one magnificent un- 
broken chain. 

The Hindoo Coosh, which has its name from a mountain 
5* 



54 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

of great height north of the city of Cabul, is very broad to 
the west, extending over many degrees of latitude, and toge- 
ther with the offsets of the Beloot Tagh, fills the countries of 
Kafferistan, Koondez, and Budaksha. From the plains to 
the south it seems to consist of four distinct ranges running 
one above another, the last of which abuts on the table-land, 
and is so high that its snowy summits are visible at the dis- 
tance of 150 miles. One of the ridges runs along the table- 
land parallel to the principal chain at the distance of 200 
miles, known as the Ice Mountains, or Kara-Korum of the 
natives. Another ridge of stupendous height incloses the 
beautiful valley of Cashmere, to the east of which the chain 
takes the name of Himalaya, " the dwelling of snow," and 
extends 300 miles to the sources of the Brahmapootra, vary- 
ing in breadth from 250 to 350 miles, and occupying an 
area of 600,000 square miles. 

The general structure of the Himalaya is very regular ; 
the first range of hills that rise above the plains of Hindostan 
is alluvial, north of which lies the Tariyani, a tract from 10 
to 30 miles wide, 1000 feet above the sea, covered with 
dense, pestilential jungle, and extending along the foot of 
the range. North of this region are rocky ridges, 5000 or 
6000 feet high. Between these and the higher ranges lie 
the peaceful and well-cultivated valleys of Nepaul, Bhotan, 
and Assam, of inexhaustible fertility, interspersed with pic- 
turesque and populous towns and villages. Though sepa- 
rated by mountain-groups, they form the principal terrace of 
the Himalaya, between the Sutlej and the Brahmapootra. 
Behind these are mountains from 10,000 to 12,000 feet high, 
flanked by magnificent forests, and, lastly, the snowy ranges 
rise in succession to the table-land. 

The principal and most elevated chains are cut by nar- 
row^, gloomy ravines and transverse dusky gorges, through 
which the torrents of melted snow rush to swell the rivers of 
Hindostan. The character of the valleys becomes softer in 
the lower regions, till at last the luxuriance of vegetation 
and beauty cannot be surpassed. Transverse valleys, how-- 
ever, are more frequent in the Hindoo Coosh than in the 
Himalaya, where they consist chiefly of such chasms filled 
with wreck as the tributaries of the Indus and Ganges have 
made in bursting through the chain. 

The mean height of the Himalaya is stupendous, certainly 



THE HIMALAYA. 55 

not less than from 16,000 to 20,000 feet, though the peaks ex- 
ceeding that elevation are not to be numbered, especially at 
the sources of the Sutlej ; indeed, from that river to the Kalee 
the chain exhibits an endless succession of the loftiest moun- 
tains on earth : forty of them surpass the height of Chimborazo, 
the highest but one of the Andes, and many reach the height 
of 25,000 feet at least. So rugged is this part of the magnifi- 
cent chain, that the military parade at Sabathoo, half a mile 
long, and a quarter of a mile broad, is said to be the only 
level ground between it and the Tartar frontier on the north, 
or the valley of Xepaul to the east. Towards the fruitful 
valleys of Nepaul and Bhotan the Himalaya is equally lofty, 
some of the mountains being from 25,000 to 28,000 feet 
high, but it is narrower, and the descent to the plains ex- 
cessively rapid, especially in the territory of Bhotan, where 
the dip from the table-land is more than 10,000 feet in ten 
miles. The valleys are crevices so deep and narrow, and 
the mountains that hang over them in menacing cliffs are so 
lofty, that these abysses are shrouded in perpetual gloom, 
except when the rays of a vertical sun penetrate their depths. 
From the steepness of the descent the rivers shoot down 
with the swiftness of an arrow, filling the caverns with foam 
and the air with mist. At the very base of this wild region 
lies the elevated and peaceful valley of Bhotan, vividly 
green and shaded by magnificent forests. Another rapid 
descent of 1000 feet leads to the plain of the Ganges. 

The Himalaya still maintains great height along the north 
of Assam, and at the sources of the Brahmapootra the parent 
stem and its branches extend in breadth over two degrees of 
latitude, forming "& vast mountain knot, with summits 20,000 
high. Beyond this point nothing certain is known of the 
range, but it, or some of its branches, are supposed to 
cross the southern provinces of tlie Chinese empire, and to 
end in the volcanic island of Formosa. Little more is 
known of the northern side of the mountains than that the 
passes are about 5000 feet above the plains of Tibet. 

The passes over the Hindoo Goosh, though not the hio-fi- 
est, are very formidable ; there are six from Gabul to the 
plains of Turkistan, and so deep and so much inclosed are 
the defiles, that Sir Alexander Burnes never could obtain 
.an observation of the pole star in the whole journey from 
Barmeean till within 30 miles of Turkistan. 



Ob PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Most of the passes over the Himalaya are but little lower 
than the top of Mont Blanc ; many are higher, especially 
near the Sutlej, where they are from 18,000 to 19,000 feet 
high, and that north-east of Khoonawur is 20,000 feet above 
the level of the sea, the highest that has been attempted. 
All are terrific, and the fatigue and suflliering from the rarity 
of the air in the last 500 feet is not to be described. Ani- 
mals are as much distressed as human beings, and many die. 
Thousands of birds perish from the violence of the wind, 
the drifting snow is often fatal to travellers, and violent 
thunder-storms add to the horror of the journey. The Niti 
Pass, by which Mr. Moorcroft ascended to the sacred lake 
of Manasa in Tibet, is tremendous : he and his guide had 
not only to walk barefooted from the risk of slipping, but 
they were obliged to creep along the most frightful chasms, 
holding by twigs and tufts of grass, and sometimes they 
crossed deep and awful crevices on a branch of a tree, or 
loose stones thrown across ; yet these are the thorough- 
fares for commerce in the Himalaya, never repaired nor 
susceptible of improvement from the frequent landslips and 
torrents. 

The loftiest peaks being bare of snow gives great variety 
of colour and beauty to the scenery, which in these passes 
is at all times magnificent. During the day the stupendous 
size of the mountains, their interminable extent, the variety 
and sharpness of their forms, and, above all, the tender 
clearness of their distant outline melting into the pale blue 
sky, contrasted with the deep azure above, is described as a 
scene of wild and wonderful beauty. At midnight, when 
myriads of stars sparkle in the black sT^y, and the pure blue 
of the mountains looks deeper still below the pale white 
gleam of the earth and snow-light, the effect is of unparal- 
leled solemnity, and no language can describe the splendour 
of the sunbeams at daybreak streaming between the high 
peaks, and throwing their gigantic shadows on the moun- 
tains below. There, far above the habitation of man, no 
living thing exists ; no sound is heard ; the very echo of the 
traveller's footsteps startles him in the awful solitude and 
silence that reigns in these august dwellings of everlasting 
snow. 

Nature has in mercy mitigated the intense rigor of the 
cold in these high lands in a degree unexampled in other 



THE HIMALAYA. 57 

mountainous regions. The climate is mild, the valleys are 
verdant and inhabited, corn and fruit ripen at elevations 
which in other countries, even under the equator, would be 
buried in permanent snow. 

It is also a peculiarity in these mountains, that the higher 
the range the higher likewise is the limit of snow and 
vegetation. On the southern slopes of the first range Mr. 
Gerard found cultivation 1 0,000 feet above the sea ; in 
the valleys of the second range he met with shepherds feed- 
ing their flocks and dwelling at the height of 14,000 feet ; 
and on the table-land of Tibet, the highest habitation of 
man in the Old World, the ground is cultivated at the alti- 
tude of 13,600 feet, which is only 2130 feet lower than the 
summit of Mont Blanc. In Chinese Tartary good crops of 
wheat are raised 16,000 feet above the sea ; the vine and 
other fruit thrive in the valleys of these high plains. The 
temperature of the. earth probably has some influence on the 
vegetation ; as many hot springs exist in the Himalaya at 
great heights, there must be a source of heat below these 
mountains which in some places comes near the surface, and 
possibly may be connected with the volcanic fires in the 
central chains of the table-land. Hot springs abound in the 
valley of Jumnotra ; and as it is well known that many 
plants thrive in very cold air if their roots are well pro- 
tected, it may be the cause of pine-trees flourishing in that 
valley nearly 13,000 feet above the sea, and of the splendid 
forests of the deodar, a pine that grows to gigantic size even 
in the snow. 

According to Captain and Mr. Gerard the line of perpe- 
tual congelation is at an elevation of only 12,800 feet on the 
southern slopes of the Himalaya, while on the northern side 
it is 15,600 feet above the sea---a remarkable circumstance, 
which is ascribed to the fogs that rise from the plains of Hin- 
dostan on one hand, and the serenity that prevails on the 
other: something may be due to radiation from the high 
northern plains, which, being so near, have much greater 
effect on the temperature than the warmer but more distant 
plains on the south. 

Four vast secondary chains leave the Himalaya at the_ 
great mountain-knot at the sources of the Brahmapootra, in 
the Chinese province of Yunnan, and extend through the 
Indo-Chinese 'peninsula and the countries east of the Ganges, 



58 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

in a southern but diverging direction', leaving large aTid fer- 
tile kingdoms between them. The Birmano-Siamese chain 
is the most extensive, reaching to the extremity of the Ma- 
layan peninsula at Cape Romania, the most southerly point 
of Asia; it maybe traced through the island of Sumatra pa- 
rallel to the coast, and also in the islands of Banka and Beli- 
ton, where it ends. 

Another range, called the Laos-Siamese chain, forms the 
eastern boundary of the kingdom of Siam, and the Annama- 
tic chain, from the same origin, separates the empire of 
Annam from Tonquin and Cochin China. 

These slightly diverging lines of mountains yield gold, 
silver, tin, of the best quality, in great plenty, almost on the 
surface, and precious stones, as rubies and sapphires. Moun- 
tains in low latitudes have nothing of the severe character of 
those in less favoured climes. Magnificent forests reach their 
summit; spices, dyes of brilliant tints, medicinal and odori- 
ferous plants clothe these declivities ; and in the low grounds 
the fruit of India and China grow in perfection in a soil 
which yields three crops of grain in the year. 

The crest of the Himalaya is of stratified crystalline rocks, 
especially gneiss, with large granitic veins, and beds of quartz 
of huge magnitude. The zone, between 15,000 and 18,000 
feet above the level of the sea, is of silurian strata, below 
which sandstone prevails : granite is most frequent at the 
base, and probably forms the foundation of the chain. Strata 
of comparatively modern date occur at great elevations. 
These sedimentary formations, prevailing also on the accli- 
vities of the Alps and Apennines, show that the epochs of 
elevation in parts of the earth widely remote from one ano- 
ther, if not simultaneous, were at least not very different. 
There can be no doubt that very great geological changes 
have taken place at a comparatively recent period in the 
Himalaya, and through an extensive part of the Asiatic con- 
tinent. 

The Altai mountains, which form the northern margin of 
the table-land, are unconnected with the Ural chain : they 
are separated from it by 400 miles of a low marshy country, 
part of the steppe of the Kirghiz, and by the Dalai mountains, 
a low range never above 2000 feet high, which runs between 
the 64th meridian and the left bank of the Irtysh. The Altai 
chain begins on the right bank of that river at the northrWest 



-THE ALTAI. 59 

angle of the table-land, and extends in a serpentine line to 
the Pacifiq, south of the Gulf of Okhotzk, dividing the high 
lands of Tartary and China from the wastes of Asiatic Sibe- 
ria, Under the name of the Aldan Mountains it skirts the 
north-west side of the Gulf of Okhotzk, and then stretches 
to Behring's Straits, its length being 4500 miles. The. 
breadth of this chain varies from 400 to 1000 miles, but to- 
wards the 105th meridian it is contracted to about 150, by 
a projection of the desert of the Great Gobi. Its height bears 
no proportion to its length and breadth. Indeed the Little 
Altai, the only part of the chain properly so called lying be- 
tween the Irtysh and the 86th degree of east longitude, can 
only be regarded as a succession of terraces of a swelling out- 
line, descending by steps from the table-land, and ending in 
promontories on the Siberian plains. There are numerous 
large lakes on these terraces and on the mountain valleys, as 
in the mountain systems of Europe. The general form of 
this part of the chain is monotonous from the prevalence of 
straight lines and smooth rounded outlines. Long ridges_ 
with flattened summits, or small table-lands, not more than 
6000 feet high, is their usual structure, rarely attaining the 
line of perennial congelation : snow however is permanent 
on the Korgon table-land, 9900 feet above the sea, supposed 
to be the culminating point of this part of the chain. These 
table-lands bear a strong resemblance to those in the Scandi- 
navian mountains in baldness and sterility, but their flanks are 
clothed with forests, verdant meadows, and pastoral valleys. 
East of, the 86th meridian this region of low mountains 
splits into three branches, inclosing longitudinal valleysfor 
450 miles. The central chain, called the Tongnou Oola, 
may be regarded as the principal continuation Of the Altai : 
it lies nearly along the 50th parallel of latitude, but, bend- 
ing northwards, passes between the lakes Kossagol and Baikal 
under the name of the Sayansk Mountains. The granite 
range of the Baikal, properly so called, meets the Sayansk 
chain nearly at right angles, and unites it with the moun- 
tains of the Upper Angara. At the point where the axes 
of the Baikal and Sayansk chains cross, the mountains 
are highest, and there only the Altai assumes the form of 
a regular chain. The principal part of the Baikal group 
is 500 miles long, from 10 to 60 wide, high and snow-cap- 
ped, but without glaciers. It flanks Lake Baikal on the north, 



60 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the largest of Alpine lakes, so imbedded in a knot of moun- 
tains, partly granitic, partly volcanic, that rocks and pillars 
of granite rise from its bed. The mountains south of the 
lake are but the face of the table-land ; a traveller ascending 
them finds himself at once in the desert of Gobi, which 
stretches in unbroken sadness to the Great Wall of China. 

The Daouria Mountains, a volcanic portion of the Altai', 
which borders the table-land on the north-east, follow the 
Baikal chain ; and farther east, at the sources of the Aldan, 
the Altai range takes the name of the Yablonnoi Khrebet, 
and stretches south of the Gulf of Okhotzk to the coast of the 
Pacific, opposite to the island of Tarakai ; while another part, 
1000 miles broad, fills the space between the Gulf of Okhotzk 
and the river Lena, and then, bending to the north-east, ends 
in the peninsula of Kamtschatka. 

A great portion of the Altai chain is unknown to Euro^ 
peans ; the innumerable branches that penetrate the Chinese 
empire are completely so : those belonging to Russia abound 
in a great variety of precious and rare metals and minerals — 
silver, copper, and iron. In the Yablonnoi range and other 
parts there are whole mountains of porphyry, with red and 
green jasper ; coal is also found ; and in a branch of the Altai, 
between the rivers Obi and Yenissei, there are mines of coal 
which were set on fire by lightning, and have continued to 
burn more than a century. The Siberian mountains far sur- 
pass the Andes in the richness of their gold-mines. The 
eastern flank of the Ural chain, and some of the northern spurs 
of the Altai, have furnished an immense quantity, but a re- 
gion as large as France has lately been discovered in Siberia 
covered with the richest gold alluvium, lying above rocks 
filled with that precious metal. The mines of the Ural and 
Altai are in metamorphic schists adjacent to the greenstones, 
syenites, and serpentines that have caused their change ; and 
as the same formation prevails throughout the greater part of 
the Altai and Aldan chains almost to Kamtschatka, there is 
every reason to believe that the whole of that vast region is 
auriferous: besides, as many of the northern offsets of the 
Altai are particularly rich, it may be concluded that the 
southern branches in the Chinese empire are equally so. 
Thus all southern Siberia and Chinese Tartaryform an auri- 
ferous district probably greater than all Europe, which ex- 
tends even to our dominions in Hindostan, where the gold 
formations are unexplored. 



TIBET. 61 

The sedimentary deposits in this extensive mountain- 
range are more ancient than the granite, syenite, and por- 
phyries ; consequently these igneous rocks have not here 
formed part of the original crust of the globe. Rocks of 
the Paleozoic series occupy the greater part of the AltaY, 
and probably there are none more modern. There are no 
volcanic rocks, ancient or modern, west of the Yenesei, but 
they abound to the east of that river, even to Kamtschatka, 
which is full of them. 

The physical characters and the fossil remains of this 
extensive mountain system have little rela.tion with the geo- 
logical formations of Europe and America. Eastern Siberia 
seems even to form an insulated district by itself, and that part 
between the town of Yakoutzk and the mouth of the Lena 
appears to have been raised at a later period than the part 
of Siberia stretching westward to the Sayanok Mountains : 
moreover the elevation of the Little Altai was probably con^ 
temporaneous with that of the Ural Mountains. 

Little more is known of the eastern boundary of the table- 
land of Tibet than that between the sources of the Brahma- 
pootra and the Altai chain nearly a million of square miles 
of the Chinese empire are covered with mountains, which 
begin under the 98th meridian at the edge of the table-land, 
and descend to the 112th-degree of east longitude in southern 
China, and to the 114th degree in the north. The eastern 
boundary of this mountainous region is said to be the chains 
of the In-Shan and Khing-Khan Oolas, The former begins 
at the southern extremity of Tartary, near the Yellow River, 
and maintains a very tortuous course to the snow-clad 
mountains of Petsha, 15,000 feet high. It then goes north, 
under the name of the Khing-Khan Oola, in a serrated granitic 
chain, separating the table-land of Mongolia from the country 
of the Manchoux, and joins the Yablonnoi branch of the 
Altai" at right angles about the 55th degree of north latitude. 

The table-land of Tibet is only 4000 feet above the sea 
towards the north, but it rises in Little Tibet to between 
11,000 and 12,000 feet. The Kuen-luen, the most southerly 
of the two diagonal mountain-chains that cross the table- 
land, begins at the Hindoo Coosh, in latitude 35° 30', and 
extends eastward in two branches, which again unite in the 
K'han of eastern Tibet, nearly in the centre of the table- 
land, where they form an elevated mountain plain round 
6 



62 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the Lake of Koko-Nor, from whence those immense moun- 
tain-ranges diverge which render the south-western pro- 
vinces of China the most elevated region on earth. The 
country of Tibet lying between the Himalaya and the 
Kuen-luen consists of rocky mountainous ridges, extending 
from N.W. to S.E., separated by long valleys, in which flow 
the upper courses of the Brahmapootra, Sutlej, and Indus. 
According to Mr. Moorcroft, the sacred lake Manasa, in 
Great Tibet, and the siirrounding country, is 17,000 feet 
above the sea, which is 1270 feet higher than Mont Blanc. 
In this elevated region the sheltered valleys and the borders 
of the streams alone are available for agriculture ; and as the 
summer sun is powerful, wheat and barley grow, and many 
of the fruits of Southern Europe ripen. The city of H'Lassa, 
in eastern Tibet, the residence of the Grand Lama, is sur- 
rounded by vineyards, and is called by the Chinese the 
" Realm of Pleasure;" There are no trees in this country, 
and the ground in cultivatian bears a small proportion to the 
grassy steppes, which extend in endless monotony, grazed 
by thousands of the shawl-wool goats, sheep, and cattle. 
There are many lakes in the table-land ; some in Ladok 
contain borax, a salt very useful in the arts, found only here 
and at Corbali in Tuscany, and the Lipari islands. 

In summer the sun is powerful at midday, the air is 
of the purest transparency, and the azure of the sky so deep 
that it seems black as in the darkest night. The rising 
moon does not enlighten the atmosphere, no warning radi- 
ance announces her approach, till her limb touches the 
horizon, and the stars shine with the distinctness and bril- 
liancy of suns. In southern Tibet the verdure is confined 
to favoured spots, the bleak mountains and high plains are 
sternly gloomy — a scene of barrenness not to be conceived. 
Solitude reigns in these dreary wastes, where there is not 
a tree nor even a shrub to be seen of more than a few inches 
height. The scanty, short-lived verdure vanishes in October, 
the country looks as if fire had passed over it, and cutting 
dry winds blow with irresistible fury, howling in the bare 
mountains, whirling the snow through the air, and freezing 
to death the unfortunate traveller benighted in their defiles. 

Yarkand and Khotan, provinces of Chinese Tartary, which 
lie beyond the two diagonal chains, are less elevated and more 
fertile than Tibet. They are watered by five rivers, and 



DESERT OF THE GREAT GOBI. 63 

contain several large cities ; Yarkand, the most considerable 
of these, is the emporium of commerce between Tibet, Tur- 
kistan, China, and Russia. Gold, rubies, silk, and other 
productions are exported. V/ 

The Tartar range of the Thian-Shan is very high ; the 
Bogda Oola, or Holy Mountain, near Lake Lop, its highest 
point, is always covered with snow ; and it has two active 
volcanoes, one on each side — a solitary instance of volcanic 
vents so far from the sea. This range runs alono the 42d 
parallel of north latitude, forming at its western extremity a 
mountain-knot with the Beloot Tagh, in the-€entre of which 
lies the small table-land of Pamere, 15^600 feet high, called 
by the natives the "Roof of the World." Its remarkable 
elevation was first observed by the enterprising Venetian 
traveller, Marco Paolo, six centuries ago.' The Oxus origi- 
nates in a glacier of the Pooshtee Khur, a peak of the Beloot 
Tagh, near the plain of Pamere ; and the lake Sir-i-Kol is 
here the source of the Yarkancl, and the Kokan also, rises 
from this plain, which is intensely cold in winter, and in, 
summer is alive with flocks of sheep and goats. 

Zungary, or Mongolia, the country between the Thian- 
Shan and the Altai, is hardly known further than that its 
grassy steppes, intersected by many lakes and otTsets from 
the x\ltai, are the pasture-grounds of the wandering Kirghis. 

The remarkable feature of the table-land is the desert of 
the Great Gobi, which occupies an area of 300,000 square 
miles in its eastern extremity", interrupted only by a few 
spots of pasture and low bushes. Wide tracts are flat and 
covered with small stones or sand, and at a great distance 
from one another there are low hills, destitute of wood and 
water; its general elevation is about 4000 feet above the 
sea, but it is intersected from west to east by a depressed 
valley aptly named Shamo, or the " Sea of Sand," which 
is also mixed with salt. West from it lies the Han-Hai, 
the " Dry Sea," a barren plain of shifting sand blown into 
high ridges. Here, as in all deserts, the summer sun is 
scorching, the winter's cold intolerable. All the plains of 
Mongolia are intensely cold, because the hills to the north 
are too low to screen them from the polar blast, and, being 
higher than the Siberian deserts, they are bitterly cold ; no 
month in the year is free from frost and snow, yet it is not 
deep enough to prevent cattle from finding pasture. Sandy 



64 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

deserts like that of the Great Gobi occupy much of the 
country south of the Chinese branches of the Altai. 

Such is the stupendous zone of high land that girds 
the old continent throughout its whole length. In the ex- 
tensive plains on each side of it several independent moun- 
tain systems rise, though much inferior to it in extent and 
height. 



CHAPTER V. 

SECONDARY MOUNTAIN SYSTEMS OF THE GREAT CONTINENT 

THAT OF SCANDINAVIA GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND 

THE URAL MOUNTAINS THE GREAT NORTHERN PLAIN. 

The great northern plain is broken by two masses of high 
land, in every respect inferior to those described : they are 
the Scandinavian system and the Ural Mountains, the arbi- 
trary limit between Europe and Asia. 

, The range of primary mountains which has given its form 
to the Scandinavian peninsula begins at Cape Lindesnaes, 
the most southerly point of Norway, and, after running 
along its western coast 1000 miles in a north-easterly di- 
rection, ends at Cape Nord Kyn on the Polar Ocean, the 
extremity of Europe. The highest elevation of this chain 
is not more than 8412 feet, ft has been compared to a 
great wave or billow, rising gradually from the east, which, 
after having formed a crest, falls perpendicularly into the 
sea in the west. There are 3696 square miles of this pe- 
ninsula above the line of perpetual snow. 

The southern portion of the chain consists of ridges fol- 
lowing the general direction of the range, 150 miles broad. 
At the distance of 360 miles from Cape Lindesnaes the 
mountains form a single elevated mass, terminated by a 
table-land, which maintains an altitude of 4500 feet for 100 
miles. It slopes towards the east, but plunges at once in 
high precipices into a deep sea on the west. 

The surface is barren, marshy and bristled with peaks ; 
besides, an area of 600 square leagues is occupied by the 
Suae Braen, the greatest mass of perpetual snow and glaciers 
on the continent of Europe. A prominent cluster of moun- 



MOUNTAINS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 65 

tains follows, from whence a single chain, 25 miles broad, 
maintains an uninterrupted line to the island of Megaree, 
where it terminates in North Cape, a huge barren rock per- 
petually lashed by the surge of the Polar Ocean. Offsets 
from these mountains cover Finland and the low rocky 
table-land of Lapland : the valleys and countries along the 
eastern side of the chain abound in forests and Alpine lakes. 
The iron-bound coast of Norway is a continued series of 
rocky islands, capes, promontories, and precipitous cliffs, 
rent into chasms which penetrate miles into the heart of the 
mountains. These chasms, or fiords, are either partly or 
entirely filled by arms of the sea ; in the former case the 
shores are fertile and inhabited. Fiords are not peculiar to 
the coast of Norway ; they are even more extensive in Green- 
land and Iceland, and of a more stern character, overhung 
by snow-clad rocks and glaciers. 

As the Scandinavian mountains, those of Feroe, Britain, 
Ireland, and the north-eastern parts of Iceland have a similar 
character, and follow the same general directions, they must 
have been elevated by forces acting in parallel lines, and 
therefore may be regarded as belonging to the same system. 
The Feroe islands, due west from Norway, rise at once 
in a table-land 2000 feet high, bounded by precipitous 
cliffs, which dip into the oc-eaii. Some parts of these islands 
are gradually-sinking below their former level ;. "indeed there 
seems to be an extraordinary flexibility in the crust of the 
earth in these high northern latitudes; it is bending below its 
former level in south Sweden, Feroe, and the west coast of 
Greenland, or in a zone between the 55th and 62d or 63d 
parallels, while the coast of Norway is rising at the rate of 
four feet in a hundred years from Solvitsberg northward to 
Lapland, where the elevation is greatest. 

The rocky islands of Zetland arnl those of Orkney form 
part of the mountain system of Scotland : the Orkney islands 
have evidently been separated from the mainland by the 
Pentland Firth, where the currents run with prodigious vio- 
lence. The north-western part of Scotland is a table-land 
from 1000 to 2000 feet high, which ends abruptly in the 
sea, covered with heath, peat-mosses, and pasture. The 
general direction of the Scottish mountains, like those of 
Scandinavia, is from north-east to south-west, divided- by 
a long line of lakes in the same direction, extending from 
6* 



66 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the Moray Firth completely across the island to south of the 
island of Mull. Lakes of the most picturesque beauty 
abound among the Scottish mountains. The Grampian hills, ■ 
with their ofisets and some low ranges, fill the greater part 
of Scotland north of the Clyde and Forth. Ben Nevis, 
only 4374 feet above the sea, is the highest hill in the British 
islands. 

The east coast of Scotland is generally bleak, though in 
many parts it is extremely fertile, and may be cited as a 
model of good cultivation ; and the midland and southern 
counties are not inferior either in the quality of the soil or 
the excellence of the husbandry. To the west the country 
is wildly picturesque ; the coast of the Atlantic, penetrated 
by the sea, which is covered with islands, bears a strong 
resemblance to that of Norway. 

There cannot be a doubt that the Hebrides formed part 
of the mainland at some remote geological period, since they 
follow the direction of the mountain system in two parallel 
lines of rugged and imposing aspect, never exceeding the 
height of 3200 feet. The undulating country on the borders 
of Scotland becomes higher in the west of England and 
North Wales, where the hills are wild, but the valleys are 
cultivated like a garden, and the English lake scenery is 
of the most gentle beauty. 

Evergreen Ireland is mostly a mountainous country, and 
opposes to the Atlantic storms an iron-bound coast of the 
wildest aspect; but it is rich in arable land, and pasture, 
and possesses the most picturesque lake scenery; indeed, 
fresh-water lakes in the mountain valleys, so peculiarly 
characteristic of the European system, are the great orna- 
ments of the high lands of Britain. 

Various parts of the British islands were dry land while 
most of the continent of Europe was yet below the ancient 
ocean. The high land of Lammermuir, the Grampian hills 
in Scotland, and those of Cumberland in England, were 
raised before the Alps had begun to appear above the waves. 
In general all the highest parts of the British mountains are 
of granite and stratified crystalline rocks. The primary fos- 
siliferous strata are of immense thickness in Cumberland 
and in the north of Wales, and the old red sandstone, many 
hundred feet thick, stretches from sea to sea along the flanks 
of the Grampians. The coal strata are developed on a great 



THE URAL. 67 

scale in the south of Scotland and the north of England, and 
examples of every formation, with one exception, are to be 
found in these islands. Volcanic fires had been very active 
in early times, and nowhere is the columnar structure more 
beautifully exhibited than in Fingal's Cave and the Storr 
of Sky in the Hebrides ; and in the north of Ireland a base 
of 800 square miles of mica slate is covered with volcanic 
rocks, which end on the coast in the magnificent columns 
of the Giant's Causeway. 

The Ural chain, the boundary between Europe and Asia, 
is the only interruption to the level of the great northern 
plain, and is altogether unconnected with, and far separated 
from, the Altai Mountains by salt lakes, marshes, and deserts. 
The central ridge may be traced from between the Lake of 
Aral and the Caspian Sea ; but as a chain it really begins on 
the right bank of the Ural river at the steppes of the Kirghis, 
about the 51st degree of north latitude, and runs due north 
in a long narrow ridge to the Gulf of Kara in the Polar Ocean, 
though it, may be said to terminate in dreary rocks on the 
west side of Nova Zembla. The Ural range is about the 
height of the mountains in the Black Forest or the Vosges, 
and, with few exceptions, is wooded to the top, chiefly by 
the pinus cimbra. The immense mineral riches of these 
mountains — gold, platina, magnetic iron, and copper — lie on 
the Siberian side, and chiefly between the 54th and 60th de- 
grees of north latitude, the only part that is colonized, and 
one of the most industrious and civilized regions of the Rus- 
sian empire. To the south the chain is pastoral, about 100 
miles broad, consisting of longitudinal ridges, the highest of 
which does not exceed 3498 feet; in this part diamonds are 
found. To the north of the mining district the narrow mural 
mass, which is at most but 5720 feet above the sea-level, is 
covered with impenetrable forests and deep morasses, alto- 
gether uninhabitable and unexplored. Throughout the Ural 
Mountains there are neither precipices, transverse gorges, nor 
any of the characteristics of a high chain : the descent on 
both sides is so gentle that in many places it is difficult to 
know where the plain begins; and the road over the chain 
from Russia to Siberia by Ekaterinburg is so low that it 
hardly seems to be a mountain pass. The gentle descent 
and sluggishness of the streams produce extensive marshes 
along the Siberian base of the range. To the arduous and 



68 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

enterprising researches of Sir Roderick Murchison we are in- 
debted for almost all we know of these mountains ; he found 
them on the western side to be composed of silurian, devo- 
nian, and carboniferous rocks more or less altered and crys- 
tallized ; and on the eastern side the mines are in metamor- 
phic strata, mixed with rocks of igneous origin, and the cen- 
tral axis is of quartzose and chloritic rocks. 

The great zone of high land which extends along the old 
continent from the Atlantic to the shores of the Pacific Ocean 
divides the low lands into two very unequal parts. That to 
the north, only broken by the Ural range, and the Valdai 
table-land of still less elevation, stretches from the Thames 
or the British hills and the eastern bank of the Seine to Beh- 
ring's Straits, including more than 190° of longitude, and 
occupying an area of at least four millions and a half of square 
geographical miles, which is a third more than all Europe. 
The greater part of it is perfectly level, with a few elevations 
and low hills, and in many places a dead level extends hun- 
dreds of miles. The country between the Carpathian and 
Ural Mountains is a flat, on which there is scarcely a rise in 
1500 miles, and in the steppes of southern Russia and Sibe- 
ria the extent of level ground is immense. The mean abso- 
lute height of the flat provinces of France is 480 feet ; Mos- 
cow, the highest point of the European plain, is also 480 
feet high, from whence the land slopes imperceptibly to the 
sea both on the north and south, till it absolutely dips below 
its level. Holland, on one side, would be overflowed were 
it not for its dykes, and towards Astrakan the plain sinks still 
lower. The whole of that extensive country north and east 
of the Caspian Sea, and around the lake of Aral, forms a vast 
cavity of 18,000 square leagues, all considerably below the 
level of the ocean ; and the surface of the Caspian Sea itself, 
the lowest point, has a depression of 348 feet. 

The European part of the plain is highly cultivated and 
very productive in the more civilized countries in its western 
and middle regions and along the Baltic. The greatest 
amount of cultivated land lies to the north of the watershed 
which stretches from the Carpathians to the centre of the 
Ural chain ; yet there are large heaths which extend from 
the extremity of Jutland through Lunebourg and Westphalia 
to Belgium. The land is of excellent quality to the south of 
it. Round Polkova and Moscow there is an extent of the 



THE GREAT NORTHERN PLAIN. 69 

finest vegetable mould, equal in size to France and the Spanish 
peninsula together, which forms part of the High Steppe, and 
is mostly in a state of nature. 

A large portion of the great plain is pasture-land, and wide 
tracts are covered with natural forests, especially in Poland 
and Russia, where there are millions of acres of pine, fir, and 
deciduous trees. 

The quantity of waste land in Europe is very great, and 
there are also many SM'araps ; a morass as long as England 
extends along the 52d parallel of latitude, following the 
course of the river Prepit, a branch of the Dniestre, which 
runs through its centre. There are swamps at the mouths of 
many of the sluggish rivers in central Europe ; they cover 
1970 square miles in Denmark, and mossy quagmires occur 
frequently in the more northerly parts. 

Towards the eastern extremity of Europe the great plain 
assumes the peculiar character of desert called a steppe, a 
word supposed to be of Tartar origin, signifying a level waste 
destitute of trees ; hence the steppes may vary according to 
the nature of the soil. They begin at the river Dnieper, and 
extend along the shores of the Black Sea: they include all 
the country north and east of the Caspian Lake and Inde- 
pendent Tartary, and, passing between the Ural and Altai 
Mountains, they may be said to occupy all the low lands of 
Siberia. Hundreds of leagues may be traversed east from 
the Dnieper without variation of scene ; a dead level of thin 
but luxuriant pasture, bounded only by the horizon, day after 
day the same unbroken monotony fatigues the eye : some- 
times there is the appearance of a lake, which vanishes on 
approach, the phantom of atmospheric refraction. Horses 
and cattle beyond number give some animation to the scene 
so long as the steppes are green, but winter comes in Octo- 
ber, and then they become a trackless field of spotless snow. 
Fearful storms rage, and the dry show is driven by the gale 
with a violence which neither man nor animal can resist, 
while the sky is clear and the sun shines cold and bright 
above the earthly turmoil. The contest between spring and 
winter is long and severe, for — 

" Winter oft at once resumes ihi' breeze. 
Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets 
Deform the day, delightless." 



70 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Yet when gentler gales succeed, and the waters run off in 
torrents through the channels which they cut in the soft 
ground, the earth is again verdant. The scorching summer's, 
sun is as severe in its consequences in these wild regions as 
the winter's cold : in June the steppes are parched, no shower 
falls, nor does a drop of dew refresh the thirsty and rent 
earth : the sun rises and sets like a globe of fire, and during 
the day he is obscured by a thick mist from the evaporation. 
In some seasons the drought is excessive ; ihe air is filled 
with dust in impalpable powder; the springs become dry, 
and cattle perish in thousands. Death triumphs over ani- 
mal and vegetable nature, and desolation tracks the scene 
to the utmost verge of th^ horizon, a hideous wreck. 

Much of this country is covered by an excellent but thin 
soil, fit for corn, which grows luxuriantly wherever it has 
been tried ; but a stiflT cold clay at a small distance below 
the surface kills every herb that has deep roots, and no plants 
thrive but those which can resist the extreme vicissitudes of 
climate. A very wide range is hopelessly barren ; the coun- 
try from the Caucasus along the shores of the Black and Cas- 
pian Seas, a dead flat twice the size of the British islands, is 
desert and destitute of fresh water. An efflorescence of salt 
covers the surface like hoar-frost ; even the atmosphere and 
the dew are saline, and many salt-lakes in the neighbour- 
hood of Astrakan furnish great quantities of common salt 
and nitre. Saline plants, with patches of verdure few and 
far between, are the only signs of vegetable life, but about 
Astrakan there is soil and cultivation. Some low hills occur 
in the country between the Caspian and the Lake of Aral, 
but it is mostly an ocean of shifting sand, often driven by 
appalling whirlwinds. 

Turkistan is a sandy desert, except on the banks of the 
Oxus and the Jaxartes, and as far on each side of them as 
canals convey the fertilizing waters. To the north barren- 
ness gives place to verdure between the Ural river and the 
terraces and mountains of central Asia, where the steppes of 
the Kirghis afiford pasture to thousands of caTnels and cattle 
belonging to these wandering hortfes. 

Siberia is either a dead level or undulating surface of 
more than 7,000,000 of square miles, between the North 
Pacific and the Ural Mountains, the Polar Sea and the Altai 
ranfge, whose terraces and offsets end in those plains, like 



THE GREAT NORTHERN PLAIN. 71 

headlands and promontories in the ocean. M. Middendorf, 
indeed, met with a chain of most desolate mountains on the 
shores of the Polar Ocean, in the country of the Saraoides ; 
and the almost inapproachable coast far to the east is unex- 
plored. The mineral riches of the mountains have brought 
together a population who inhabit towns of considerable 
importance along the base of the Ural and Altai chains, 
where the ground yields good crops and pasture ; and there 
are forests on the undulations of the mountains and on the 
plains. There are many hundred square miles of rich black 
mould covered with trees and grass, uninhabited, between 
the river Tobal and the upper course of the Obi, within the 
limit where corn would grow ; but even this valuable soil 
is studded with small lakes of salt and fresh water, a chain 
of which, 300 miles long, skirts the base of the Ural Moun- 
tains. 

North of the 62d parallel of latitude corn does not ripen, 
on account of the biting blasts from the Icy Ocean which 
sweep supreme over these unprotected wastes. In a higher 
latitude even the interminable forests of gloomy fir are seen 
no more ; all is a wide-spreading desolation of. salt steppes, 
boundless swamps, and lak^s of salt and fresh water. The 
cold is so intense there that the spongy soil is perpetually 
frozen to the depth of some hundred feet below the surface ; 
and the surface itself, not thawed before the end of June, is 
again ice-bound by the middle of September, and deep snow 
covers the ground nine or ten months in the year. Happily 
gales of wind are not frequent during winter, but when they 
do occur no living thing ventures to face them. The sun, 
though long absent from these dismal regions, does not 
leave them to utter darkness ; the extraordinary brilliancy 
of the stars, and the gleaming snow-light, produce a kind 
of twilight, which is augmented by the splendid coruscations 
of the Aurora Borealis. 

The scorching heat of the summer's sun produces a change 
like magic on the southern provinces of the Siberian wilder- 
ness. The snow is scarcely gone before the ground is 
covered with verdure, and flowers of various hues blossom, 
bear their seed, and die in a few months, when winter re- 
sumes his empire. A still shorter-lived vegetation scantily 
covers the plains in the far north, and, on the shores of the 
Icy Ocean, even reindeer-moss grows scantily. 



72 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The abundance of fur-bearin^ animals in the less rigorous 
parts of the Siberian deserts has tempted the Russians to 
colonize and build towns on these frozen plains. Yakutsk, 
on the river Lena, in 62° 1' 30" N. latitude, is probably 
the coldest town on earth. The ground is perpetually frozen 
to the depth of more than 400 feet, of which three feet only 
are thawed in summer, when Fahrenheit's thermometer is 
frequently 77° in the shade ; and as there is sometimes 
no frost for four months, larch forests cover the ground, and 
wheat and rye produce from fifteen to forty fold. In winter 
the cold is so intense that mercury is constantly frozen two 
months, and occasionally even three. 

In the northern parts of Europe the silurian, devonian, 
and carboniferous strata are widely developed, and more to 
the south they are followed in ascending order by immense 
tracts of the higher series of secondary rocks, abounding in the 
huge monsters of a former world. Very large and interesting 
tertiary basins fill the ancient hollows in many parts of the 
plain, which are crowded with the remains of animals that 
no longer exist. Of these the most important are the Lon- 
don, Paris, Brussels, and Moscow basins, with many others 
in the north of Germany and Russia, and alluvial soil covers 
the greater part of the plain. In the east Sir Roderick Mur- 
chison has determined' the boundary of a region twice as 
large as France, extending from the Polar Ocean to the 
southern steppes, and from beyond the Volga to the flanks 
of the Ural chain, which consists of a red deposit of sand 
and marl, full of copper in grains, belonging to the Permian 
system. This, and the immense tract of black loam already 
mentioned, are the principal features of eastern Europe. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE SOUTHERN LOW LANDS OF THE GREAT CONTINENT, WITH 
THEIR SECONDARY TABLE-LANDS AND MOUNTAINS. 

The low lands to the south of the great mountain girdle 
of the old continent are much broken by its offsets, by 
separate groups of mountains, and still more by the deep 



CHINA. 73 

indentation of bays and large seas. Situate in lower lati- 
tudes, and sheltered by mountains from the cutting Siberian 
winds, these plains are of a more tropical character than 
those to the north ; but they are strikingly contrasted iri 
their different parts, — either rich in all the exuberance that 
heat, moisture, and soil can produce, or covered by wastes 
of bare sand, — in the most advanced state of cultivation, or 
in the wildest garb of nature. 

The barren parts of the low lands lying between the eas- 
tern shores of China and the Indus bear a small proportion 
to the riches of a soil vivified by tropical warmth, and 
watered by the periodical inundations of the mighty rivers 
that burst from the icy caverns of Tibet and the Himalaya. 
On the contrary, the favoured regions on that part of the low 
land lying between the Persian Gulf, the Euphrates, and the 
Atlas Mountains, are small when compared with the immense 
expanse of the Arabian and African deserts, calcined and 
scorched by an equatorial sun. The blessing of a mountain 
zone, pouring out its everlasting treasures of moisture, the 
life-blood of the soil, is nowhere more strikingly exhibited 
than in the contrast fc rmed by these two regions of the globe. 

The Tartar country of Mandshur, watered by the river 
Amour, but little known to Europeans, lies immediately 
south of the Yablonnoi branch of the Altai chain, and con- 
sequently partakes of the desert aspect of Siberia, and, in its 
northern parts, even of the Great Gobi. It is partly inter- 
sected by mountains, and covered by dense forests ; neverthe- 
less, oats grow in the plains, and even wheat in sheltered 
places. Towards Corea the country is more fertile ; in that 
peninsula there are cuhivated plains at the base of its central 
mountain-range. 

China is the most productive country on the face of the 
earth ; an alluvial plain of 210,000 square miles, formed by 
one of the most extensive river systems in the old world, 
occupies its eastern part. This plain, seven times the size 
of Lombardy, is no less fertile, and perfectly irrigated by 
canals. The great canal traverses the eastern part of the 
plain for 700 miles, of which 500 are in a straight line of 
considerable breadth, with a current in the greater part of 
it. Most part of the plain is in rice and garden ground, the 
whole cultivated with the spade. The tea-plant grows on 
a low range of hills between the 30th and 32d parallels of 
7 



74 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

north latitude, an offset from the Pe-ling chain. The cold 
in winter is much greater than in corresponding European 
latitudes, and the heat in summer is pro[)ortionally excessive. 
The Indo-Chinese peninsula, lying between China and 
the river Brahmapootra, has an area of 77,700 square miles, 
and projects 1500 miles into the ocean. The plains lying 
between the offsets descending from the east end of the 
Himalaya, and which divide it longitudinally, as before 
mentioned, are very extensive. The Birman empire alone, 
which occupies the valley of the Irrawaddy, is said to be as 
large as France, and not less fertile, especially its southern 
part, which is the granary of the empire. Magnificent 
rivers intersect the alluvial plains, whose soil they have 
brought down from the table-land of Tibet, and still con- 
tinue to deposit in great quantities in the deltas at their 
mouths. 

The plains of Hindostan extend 2000 miles along the 
southern slope of the Himalaya and Hindoo Coosh, between 
the Brahmapootra and the Indus, and terminate on the south 
in the Bay of Bengal, the table-land of the Decan, and the 
Indian Ocean — a country embracing in its range every 
variety of climate, from tropical heat and moisture to the 
genial temperature of southern Europe. 

The valley of the Ganges is one of the richest on the 
globe, and contains a greater extent of vegetable mould, 
and of land under cultivation, than any other country in this 
continent, except perhaps the Chinese empire. In its upper 
part, Sirhind and Delhi, the seat of the ancient Mongol em- 
pire, still rich in splendid specimens of Indian art, are partly 
^rid, although in the latter there is fertile soil. The country 
is beautiful where the Jumna and other streams unite to form 
the Ganges. These rivers are often hemmed in by rocks 
and high banks, which in a great measure prevent the peri- 
odical overflow of the waters ; this, however, is compen- 
sated by the coolness and moisture of the climate. The 
land gradually improves towards the east, as it becomes 
more flat, till at last there is not a stone to be seen for hun- 
dreds of miles down to the Gulf of Bengal. Wheat and 
other European grain is produced in the upper part of this 
magnificent valley, while in the south every variety of In- 
dian fruit, rice, cotton, indigo, opium, and sugar, are the 
staple commodities. The ascent of the plain of the Ganges 



THE PENINSULA OF HINDOSTAN. 75 

from the Bay of Bengal is so gradual, that Sahararapore, 
nearly at the foot of the Himalaya, is only 1100 feet above 
the level of Calcutta ; the consequence of which is, that the 
Ganges and Brahmapootra, with their branches, in the rainy 
season between June and September, lay Bengal under 
water for hundreds of miles in every direction, like a great 
sea. When the water subsides, the plains are verdant with 
rice and other grain ; but when harvest is over, and the heat 
intense, the scene is changed — the country, divested of its 
beauty, becomes parched and dusty everywhere, except in 
the extensive jungles. It has been estimated that one-third 
of the British territory in India is covered with these rank 
marshy tracts. 

The peninsula of Hindostan is occupied by the triangular- 
shaped table-land of the Decan, which is much lower, and 
totally unconnected with the table-land of Tibet. It has 
the primary ranges of the Ghauts on the east and west, and 
the Vendhya Mountains on the north, sloping by successive 
levels to the plains of Hindostan Proper. The surface of 
the Decan, between 3000 and 4000 feet above the sea, is a 
combination of plains, ridges of rock, and insulated flat- 
topped hills, which are numerous, especially in its north- 
eastern parts. These solitary and almost inaccessible 
heights rise abruptly from the plains, with all but perpen- 
dicular sides, which can only be scaled by steps cut in the 
rock, or by very dangerous paths. Many are fortified, and 
were the strongholds of the natives, but they never have 
withstood the determined intrepity of British soldiers. 

The peninsula terminates with the table-land of the My- 
sore, 7000 feet above the sea, surrounded by hills 1500 
higher. 

The base of this plateau, and indeed of all the Decan, is 
granite, and there are also syenitic and trap rocks, with 
abundance of primary and secondary fossiliferous strata. 
Though possessing the diamond-mines of Golconda, the true 
riches of this country consist in its vegetable mould, which 
in the Mysore is a hundred feet thick, an inexhaustible 
source of fertility. The sea-coasts on the two sides of the 
peninsula are essentially diiferent : that of Malabar is rocky, 
but in many parts well cultivated, and its high mountains 
are covered with forests ; whereas on the Coromandel coast 
the mountains are bare, and the wide maritime plains are 
for the most part parched. 



76 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The island of Ceylon, nearly equal in extent to Ireland, is 
almost joined to the southern extremity of the peninsula by 
sandbanks and small islands, between which the water is 
only six feet deep in spring tides. The Sanscrit name of 
the " Resplendent" may convey some idea of this islanJ, 
rich and fertile in soil, adorned by lofty mountains, nume- 
rous streams, and primeval forests ; in addition to which it is 
rich in precious stones, and has the pearl-oyster on its coast. 

The Asiatic low lands are continued westward from the 
Indian peninsula by the Punjab and the Great Indian Desert. 
The Punjab, or " country of the five rivers," lies at the base 
of the Hindoo Coosh. Its most northern part consists of 
fertile terraces, highly cultivated, and valleys at the foot of 
the mountains. It is very productive in the plain within the 
limits of the periodical inundations of the rivers, and where 
it is watered by canals ; in other parts it is pastoral. Lahore 
occupies the chief part of the Punjab ; and the city of that 
name on the Indus, once the rival of Delhi, lies on the high 
road from Persia to India, and was made the capital of the 
kingdom by Runjeet Sing. The valley of the Indus through- 
out partakes of the character of the Punjab ; it is fertile only 
where it is within reach of water ; much of it is delta, which 
is occupied by rice-grounds ; the rest is pasture, or sterile 
salt marshes. 

South of the Punjab, and between the fertile plains of 
Hindostan and the left banks of the Indus, lies the Great 
Indian Desert, which is about 400 miles broad, and becomes 
more and more arid^as it approaches the river. It consists 
of a hard clay, covered with shifting sand, driven into hfgh 
waves by the wind, with some parts that are verdant after 
the rains. In the province of Cutch, south of the desert, a 
space of 7000 square miles, known as the Run of Cutch, is 
alternately a sandy salt desert and an inland sea. In April 
the waves of the sea are driven over it by the prevailing 
winds, leaving only a few grassy eminences, the resort of 
wild asses. The Desert of Mekram, an equally barren tract, 
extends along the Gulf of Oman from the mouths of the 
Indus to the Persian Gulf; in some places, however, it pro- 
duces the Indian palm and the aromatic shrubs of Arabia 
Felix. 

The scathed shores of the Arabian Gulf, where not a 
blade of grass freshens the arid sands, and the not less barren 



PENINSUIiA OF ARABIA. 77 

valley of the Euphrates and Tigris, except where the floods 
of these rivers irrigate the soil, separate Asia from Arabia 
and Africa, the most desert regions in the old world. 
V vThe peninsula of Arabia, divided into two parts by the 
tropic of Cancer, is about four times the size of France. No 
rivers, and few streams or springs, nourish this thirsty land, 
whose barren sands are scorched by a fierce sun. The cen- 
tral is a table-land of moderate height, which, however, is 
said to have an elevation of 8000 feet in the province of 
Haudramaut. To the south of the tropic it is an almost 
interminable ocean of drifting sand, wafted in clouds by the 
gale, and dreaded even by the wandering Beduin. At wide 
intervals, long, narrow depressions cheer the eye with brush- 
wood and verdure. More to the north, mountains and hills 
cross the peninsula from S.W. to N.E., inclosing cultivated 
and fine pastoral valleys, adorned by groves of the date- 
palm and aromatic shrubs. Desolation once more resumes 
its domain where the table-land sinks into the Syrian desert, 
and throughout the rest of its circumference it descends in 
terraces or parallel ranges of mountains and hills to a flat 
sandy coast, from 30 to 100 miles wide, which surrounds 
the greater part of the peninsula, from the mouths of the 
Euphrates to the Isthmus of Suez. The hills come close to 
the beach in the province of Oman, which is traversed by 
chains, and broken into piles of arid mountains, not more 
than 3500 feet high, with the exception of the Jebel Okkdar, 
which is 6000 feet above the sea, and is cleft by temporary 
streams and fertile valleys. Here the ground is cultivated 
and covered with verdure, and ^till farther south there is a 
line of oases fed by subterraneous springs, where the fruit 
common to Persia, India, and Arabia are produced. 

The south-eastern coast is scarcely known, except towards 
the provinces of Haudramaut and Yemen, or Arabia Felix, 
where ranges of mountains, some above 5000 feet high, line 
the coast, and in many places project into the ocean, some- 
times forming excellent harbours, as that of Aden, which is 
protected by jutting rocks. In the intervals there are towns 
and villages, cotton-trees, date-groves, and cultivated ground. 

On the northern side of these granite ranges, where the 

table-land is 8000 feet above the sea, and along the edge of 

the desert of El Aklaj, in Haudramaut, there is a tract of 

sand so loose an.d so very fine, that a plummet was sunk in 

7* 



78 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

it by Baron Wrede to the depth of 360 feet without reach- 
ing the bottom. There is a tradition in the country that the 
army of King Suffi perished in attempting to cross this desert. 
Arabia Felix, which merits its name, is the only part of that 
country with permanent streams, though they are small. 
Here also the mountains and fertile ground run far inland, 
producing grain, pasture, coffee, odoriferous plants, and 
gums. High cliffs line the shores of the Indian Ocean and 
the Strait of Babelman-deb, " the Gate of Tears." The fer- 
tile country is continued a considerable way along the coast 
of the Red Sea, but the character of barrenness is resumed 
by degrees, till at length the hills and intervening terraces, 
on which Mecca and Medina, the holy cities of the Mahome- 
dans, stand, are sterile wastes wherever springs do not water 
them. The blast of the desert, loaded with burning sand, 
sweeps over these parched regions. Mountains skirt the 
table-land to the north ; and the peninsula between the Gulfs 
of Akaba and Suez on the Red Sea, the Eliath of Scripture, 
is filled by the mountain-groups of Sinai and Horeb. Jebel 
Housa, Mount Sinai, on which Moses received the Ten Com- 
mandments, is 9000 feet high, surrounded by higher moun- 
tains, which are covered with snow in winter. The group 
of Sinai is full of springs, and verdant. At its northern ex- 
tremity lies the desert of El-Teh, 70 miles long and 30 broad, 
in which the Israelites wandered forty years. It is covered 
with long ranges of high rocks, of most repulsive aspect, rent 
into deep clefts only a few feet wide, hemmed in by walls 
of rock sometimes 1000 feet high, like the deserted streets 
of a Cyclopean town. The whole of Arabia Petrea, Edom 
of the sacred writers, presents a scene of appalling desola- 
tion, completely fulfilling the denunciation of prophecy. 

A sandy desert, crossed by low limestone ridges, separates 
the table-land of Arabia from the habitable part of Syria, 
which the mountains of Lebanon divide into two narrow 
plains. These mountains may almost be considered offsets 
from the Taurus chain; at least they are joined to it by the 
wooded range of Gawoor, the ancient Amanus, impassable 
except by two defiles, celebrated in history as the Amanic 
and Syrian Gates. The group of Lebanon begins with Mount 
Cavius, which rises abruptly from the sea in a single peak 
to the height of 7000 feet, at the mouth of the river Orontes. 
From thence the chain runs south, at a distance of about 20 



SYKIA. 79 

miles from the shores of the Mediterranean, in a continuous 
line of peaks to the sources of the Jordan, where it splits 
into two nearly parallel naked branches, inclosing the wide 
and fertile plain of Beka or Ghor, the ancient Coelo-Syria, in 
which are the ruins of Balbec. 

The Lebanon branch terminates at the sea near the mouth 
of the river Leontes, a few miles north of the city of old 
Tyre ; while the Anti-Libanus, w^hich begins at MountTIer- 
mon, 9000 feet high, runs west of the Jordan through Pales- 
tine, in a winding line, till its last spurs, south of the Dead 
Sea, sink in ridges of rock on the desert of Sinai. 

The tops of all these mountains, from Scanderoon to Jeru- 
salem, are covered with snow in winter; it is permanent on 
Lebanon only, whose absolute elevation is 9300 feet. The 
precipices are terrific, the springs abundant, and the spurs 
of the .mountains are studded with villages and convents; 
there are forests in the higher grounds, and lower down vine- 
yards and gardens. Many offsets from the Anti-Libanus end 
precipitously on the coast between Tripoli and Berout, among 
which the scenery is superb. 

The valleys and plains of Syria are full of rich vegetable 
mould, particularly the plain of Damascus, which is bril- 
liantly verdant, though surrounded by deserts, the barren 
uniformity of which is relieved on the east by the broken 
columns and ruined temples of Palmyra and Tadmore. The 
Assyrian wilderness, however, is not everywhere absolutely 
barren. In the spring-time it is covered with a thin but 
vivid verdure, mixed with fragrant aromatic herbs, of very 
short duration. When these are burnt up, the unbounded 
plains resume their wonted dreariness. The country, high 
and low, becomes more barren towards the Holy Land, yet 
even here some of the mountains — as Carmel, Bashan, and 
Tabor — are luxuriantly wooded, and many of the valleys are 
fertile, especially the valley of the Jordan, which has the ap- 
pearance of pleasure-grounds, with groves of wood and aro- 
matic plants, but almost in a state of nature. One side of the 
Lake of Galilee is savage ; on the other there are gentle hills 
and wild romantic vales, adorned with palm-trees, olives, and 
sycamores, — a scene of calm solitude and pastoral beauty. 
Jerusalem stands on a declivity encompassed by severe stony 
mountains, wild and desolate. The greater part of Syria is 
a desert compared with its ancient state. Mussulman rule 



80 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

has blighted this fair region, once flowing with milk and 
honey, — the land of promise. 

Farther south desolation increases ; the valleys become 
narrovver, the hills more denuded and rugged, till south of 
the Dead Sea their dreary aspect announces the approach to 
the desert. 

The valley of the Jordan affords the most remarkable in- 
stance known of the depression of the land below the general 
surface of the globe. This hollow, which extends from the 
Gulf of Accabah on the Red Sea to the bifurcation of Leba- 
non, is 625 feet below the level of the Mediterranean at the 
Sea of Galilee, and the acrid waters of the Dead Sea have a 
depression of 1230 feet. The lowness of the valley had been 
observed by the Romans, who gave it the descriptive name 
of Ccelo-Syria, " Hollow Syria." It is absolutely walled in 
by mountains between the Dead Sea and Lebanon, where it 
is from 10 to 15 miles wide. 

A shrinking of the strata must have taken place along this 
coast of the Mediterranean from a sudden change of tempe- 
rature, or perhaps in consequence of some of the internal 
props giving way, for the valley of the Jordan is not the only 
instance of a dip of the soil below the sea-level ; the small 
bitter lakes on the Isthmus of Suez are cavities of the same 
kind, as well as the Natron lakes on the Libyan desert west 
from the delta of the Nile. 



CHAPTER VII. 



AFRICA : TABLE-LAND CAPE OF GOOD HOPE AND EASTERN 

COAST WESTERN COAST — ; ABYSSINIA SENEGAMBIA LOW 

LANDS AND DESERTS. 

The continent of Africa is 5000 miles long from the Cape 
of Good Hope to its northern extremity, and as much be- 
tween Cape Guardafui, on the Indian Ocean, and Cape Verde, 
on the Atlantic ; but, from the irregularity of its figure, it has 
an area of only 12,000,000 square miles. It is divided in 
two by the equator, consequently the greater part of it lies 
under a tropical sun. The high and low lands of this por- 



CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 81 

tion of the old continent are so distinctly separated by the 
Mountains of the Moon, that, with the exception of the moun- 
tainous territory of the Atlas, and the small table-land of 
Barca, it may be said to consist of two parts only, a high 
country and a low. 

An extensive, though not very elevated table-land, occu- 
pies all southern Africa, and even reaches to six or seven de- 
grees north of the equator. On three sides it shelves down 
in tiers of narrow parallel terraces to the ocean, separated 
by mountain-chains which rise in height as they recede from 
the coast ; and there is reason to believe that the structure 
of the northern declivity is similar though its extremities only 
are known — namely, Abyssinia on the east, and the high 
land of Senegambia on the west; both of which project far- 
ther to the north than the central part. 

The borders of the table-land are very little known to 
Europeans, and still less its surface, which no white man 
has crossed north of the Tropic of Capricorn. A compara- 
tively small part, north from the Cape of Good Hope, has 
been explored by European travellers. Mr. Truter and Mr. 
Somerville were the first white men whom the inhabitants of 
Litakoo had seen. Of an expedition that followed their 
track, a few years after, no one returned. 

North of the Cape the land rises to 6000 feet above the 
sea, and the Orange River, with its tributaries, maybe more 
aptly said to drain than to irrigate the arid country through 
which they flow ; many of the tributaries, indeed, are only 
the channels through which the torrents, from the periodical 
rains, are carried to the Orange River, and are destitute of 
water many months in the year. The " Dry River," the 
name of one of these periodical streams, is in that country 
no misnomer. Their margins are adorned with mimosas, 
and the sandy plains have furnished treasures to the botanist. 

Dr. Smith crossed the tropic of Capricorn in a journey 
from the Cape of Good Hope, where the country had still 
the same arid character. North from that there is a great 
tract unexplored. In 1802 two native travelling merchants 
crossed the continent, which is 1590 miles wide, from 
Loanda, on the Atlantic, to Zarabeze, on the Mozambique 
Channel. They found various mercantile nations consider- 
ably advanced in civilization, who raise abundance of maize 
and millet, though the greater part of the country is in a state 



82 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

of nature. Ridges of low hills, yielding copper, the staple 
commodity of this country, run from S.E. to N.W. to the 
west of the dominions of the Carabeze,a country full of rivers, 
morasses, and extensive salt-marshes, which supply this part 
of the continent with salt. The travellers crossed 102 rivers, 
most of them fordable ; but the leading feature of this 
country is Lake N'yassi, of great but unknown length, 
though comparatively narrow. It begins 200 miles north 
from the town of Tete, on the Zambeze, and extends from 
S.E. to N.W., flanked on the east by a range of mountains 
of the same name, running in the same direction, at the dis- 
tance of 350 miles from the Mozambique Channel. This is 
all we know of the table-land of south Africa. It is evi- 
dent, however, that there can be no very high mountains 
covered with perpetual snow on the table-land, for, if there 
were, southern Africa would not be destitute of great rivers ; 
nevertheless, the height of the Komri, or Mountains of the 
Moon, on its northern edge, must be considerable, to supply 
the perennial sources of the Nile, the Senegal, and the Niger. 

The edges of the table-land are better known. At the 
Cape of Good Hope the African continent is about 700 
miles broad, and ends in three narrow parallel ridges of 
mountains, the last of which is the highest and abuts on the 
table-land. All are cleft by precipitous deep ravines, through 
which winter torrents flow to the ocean. The longitudinal 
valleys, or karoos, that separate them are tiers, or steps, by 
which the plateau dips to the maritime plains. The descent 
is rapid, as both these plains and the mountain-ranges are 
very narrow. On the western side the mountains form a 
high group, and end in steep promontories on the coast, 
where Table Mountain, at Cape Town, 3582 feet high, forms 
a conspicuous landmark to mariners. 

Granite, which is the base of southern Africa, rises to a 
considerable height in many places, and is generally sur- 
mounted by vast horizontal beds of sandstone, which give 
that character of flatness peculiar to the summits of many of 
the Cape mountains. 

The karoos, or longitudinal valleys, are arid deserts in 
the dry season, but soon after the rains they are covered 
with verdure and a splendid flora. The maritime plains 
partake of the same temporary aridity, though a large portion 
is rich in cereal productions, vineyards, and pasture. 



WESTERN COAST OF AFRICA. 83 

The most inland of the parallel ranges, about the 20th 
meridian, is 10,000 feet high, and, though it sinks to some 
groups of hills at its eastern end, it rises again, about the 
27th meridian, in a truly Alpine and continuous chain — the 
Quotlamba Mountains, which follow the northerly direction 
of Natal, and are continued in the Lupata range of hills, 80 
miles inland, through Zanguebar. 

At Natal the coast is grassy, with clumps of trees, like an 
English park. The Zambeze, and other streams from the 
table-land, refresh the plains on the Mozambique Channel 
and Zanguebar, where, though some parts are marshy and 
covered with mangroves, groves of palm-trees adorn the 
plains, which yield prodigious quantities of grain, and noble 
forests cover the mountains ; but from 4° N. lat. to Cape 
Guardafui is a continued desert. There is also a barren 
tract at the southern end of the Lupata chain, where gold 
is found in masses and grains on the surface and in the 
water-courses which tempted the Portuguese to make settle- 
ments on these unwholesome coasts. 

The island of Madagascar, with its magnificent range of 
mountains, 12,000 feet high, full of tremendous precipices, 
and covered with primeval forests, is parallel to the African 
coast, and only separated from it by the Mozambique 
Channel ; so it may be presumed that it rose from the deep 
at the same time as the Lupata chain. 

The contrast between the eastern and western coasts of 
South Africa is very great. The escarped bold mountains 
round the Cape of Good Hope, and its rocky coast, which 
extends a short way along the Atlantic to the north, are 
succeeded by ranges of sandstone of small elevation, which 
separate the internal sandy desert from the equally parched 
sandy shore. The terraced dip of the Atlantic coast, for 
900 miles between the Orange River and Cape Negro, has 
not a drop of fresh water. 

At Cape Negro ranges of mountains, separated by long 
level tracts, begin, and make a semicircular bend into the 
interior, leaving plains along the coast 140 miles broad. 
In Benguela these plains are healthy and cultivated ; farther 
north there are monotonous grassy savannahs, and forests of 
gigantic trees. The ground in many places, saturated with 
water, bears a tangled crop of mangroves and tall reeds ; 
which even cover the shoals along that flat coast ; hot pes- 



84 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

tilential vapours hang over them, never dissipated by a 
breeze. 

The country of the Calbongos is the highest land on the 
coast, where a magnificent group of mountains, 13,000 feet 
above the sea, covered almost to their tops with large timber, 
lie not far inland. The low plains of Bafra and Benin, west 
of them, but especially the delta of the Niger, consist en- 
tirely of swamps loaded with rank vegetation. The angel 
of Death, brooding over these regions in noisome exhala- 
tions, guards the interior of that country from the aggres- 
sions of the European, and has hitherto baffled his attempts 
to form settlements on the banks of this magnificent river. 

Many portions of North Guinea are so fertile that they 
might vie with the valley of the Nile in cereal riches, besides 
various other productions ; and though the temperature is 
very high, the climate is not very unhealthy. 

No European has yet seen the Mountains of the Moon, 
which are said to cross the continent along the northern edge 
of the great plateau, bet\veen two projections or promontories 
of Abyssinia and Senegambia. This chain divides the semi- 
civilized states of Soudan, Bornou, and Begharmi from the 
barbarous nations on the table-land. It extends south of 
Abyssinia at one end, at the other it joins the high land of 
Senegambia, and is continued in the Kong range, which 
runs 1200 miles behind Dahomy and the Gold Coast, and 
ends in the promontory of Sierra Leone. 

The vast Alpine promontory of Abyssinia, or Ethiopia, 
700 miles wide, projects from the table-land for 300 miles 
into the low lands of North Africa. It dips in parallel 
ridges and longitudinal valleys to the Red Sea on the east, 
to a low swampy region on the north, and to the plains of 
Senaar and Kardofan on the west. The whole country is a 
mass of rugged mountains, torn by ravines, with intervening 
cultivated valleys and verdant plains. The plain of Dembea, 
the summit of the plateau, 8000 feet above the sea, the 
granary of the country, also abounds in pasture, and enjoys 
a perpetual spring. Dr. Beke, who has travelled to the south 
of Abyssinia to within six degrees of the equator, found the 
same natural characters. 

The mountains of Abyssinia, and those to the west of it, 
are the watershed whence the streams that form the Nile 
flow to the north, while the Quilimane, which rises also in 



ABYSSINIA SENEGASIBIA . 85 

these mountains, runs to the Indian Ocean, and all the 
streams that rise east of Bornou run into Lake Tchad. 

The geological structure of Abyssinia is similar to that of 
the Cape of Good Hope, the base being granite, and the 
superstructure sandstone, occasionally with limestone, schist, 
and breccia. The granite comes to the surface in the lower 
parts of Abyssinia, but sandstone predominates in the upper 
parts, and assumes a tabular form, often lying on the tops of 
the mountains in enormous flat masses, only accessible by 
steps cut in the rock, or by ladders. Such insulated spots 
are used as state prisons. Large tracts are af ancient volcanic 
rocks, especially in Shoa. 

Senegambia, the appendage to the western extremity of 
the table-land, also projects far into the low lands, and is the 
watershed whence the streams flow on one side to the plains 
of Soudan, where they join the Joliba, or Niger ; and from 
the other side, the Gambia, Senegal, and other rivers, run 
into the Atlantic over a rich cultivated plain, but unhealthy, 
from the rankness 6fthe vegeta4;ion. 

The moisture that descends from the northern edge of the 
table-land of South Africa, under the fiery radiance of a tro- 
pical sun, fertilizes a tract of country stretching from sea to 
sea across the continent, the commencement of the African 
low lands. A great part of this region, which contains many 
kingdoms and commercial cities, is a very productive coun- 
try. The abundance of water, the industry of the natives in 
irrigating the ground, the periodical rains, and the tropical 
heat, leave the soil no repose. Agriculture is in a rude state, 
but nature is so bountiful that rice and millet are raised in 
sufficient quantity to supply the w-ants of a numerous popula- 
tion. Gold is found in the river-courses, and there are 
elephants in the forests; but man is the staple of their Com- 
merce, — a disgrace to the savage who sells his fellow-crea- 
ture, but a far greater disgrace to the more savage purchaser, 
who dares to assume the sacred name of Christian. 

This long belt of never-failing vitality, which has its large 
lakes, poisonous swamps, deep forests of gigantic trees, and 
vast solitudes in which no white man ever trode, is of small 
width compared with its length. Li receding from the moun- 
tains the moisture becomes less, and the soil gradually worse, 
sufficing only to produce grass for the flocks of the wander- 
ing: Beduin. At last a hideous barren waste begins, which 
8 



86 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

extends northwards 800 miles in unvaried desolation to the 
grassy steppes at the foot of the Atlas; and, for 1000 miles 
between the Atlantic and the Red Sea, the nakedness of this 
blighted land is unbrokep but by the valley of the Nile and 
a few oases. 

In the west about 760,000 square miles— an area equal to 
that of the Mediterranean Sea — is covered by the trackless 
sands of the Sahara Desert, which is even prolonged for miles 
into the Atlantic in the form of sandbanks. This desert is 
alternately scorched by heat and pinched by cold. The 
wind blows from the east nine months in the year, and at 
the equinoxes it rushes in a hurricane, driving the sand in 
clouds before it, producing the darkness of night at midday, 
and overwhelm^ing caravans of men and animals in common 
destruction. Then the sand^ is heaped up in waves ever 
varying with the blast; even the atmosphere is of sand. 
The desolation of this dreary waste, boundless to the eye as 
the ocean, is terrific andsublime; the dry, heated air is like 
a red vapour, the setting sun seems to be, a volcanic fire, 
and, at times, the burning wind of the desert is the blast of 
death. There are many salt-lakes to the north, and even the 
springs are of brine ; thick incrustations of dazzling salt cover 
the ground, and the particles, carried aloft by whirlwinds, 
flash in the sun like diamonds. 

Sand is not the only character of the desert; tracts of 
gravel and low bare rocks occur at times, not less barren and 
dreary; Ixut, on the eastern and northern borders of the 
Sahara, fresh water rises near the surface, and produces an 
occasional oasis where barrenness and vitality meet. The 
oases are generally-depressed below the level of the desert, 
with an arenaceous or calcareous border inclosing their eme- 
rald verdure like a frame. The smaller oases produce her- 
bage, ferns, acacias, and some shrubs ; forests of date-palms 
grow in the larger, which are the retort of lions, panthers, 
gazelles, reptiles, and a variety of birds. 

In the Nubian and Libyan deserts, to the east of the Sahara, 
the continent shelves down towards the Mediterranean in a 
series of steps, consisting of vast level sandy or gravelly 
deserts, lying east and west, separated by low rocky ridges. 
This shelving country, which is only 540 feet above the sea 
at the distance of 750 miles inland, is cut transversely by the 
Nile, and by a deep furrow parallel to it, in which there is 



AFRICAN DESERTS. 87 

a long line of oases. This furrow, the Xile, and the Red 
Sea, nearly parallel to both, are flanked by rocky eminences 
which go north from the table-land. 

On the interminable sands and rocks of these deserts no 
animal, no insect, breaks the dread silence: not a tree nor a 
shrub is to be seen in this land without a shadow. In the 
glare of noon the air quivers with the heat reflected from the 
red sand, and in the night it is chilled under a clear sky 
sparkling with its host of stars. Strangely, but beautifully, 
contrasted with these scorched solitudes, is the narrow valley 
of the Xile, threading the desert for a thousand miles in 
emerald green, with its blue waters foamins: in rapids among 
wild rocks, or quietly spreading in a calm stream amidst fields 
of corn, and the august-monuments of past ages. 

At the distance of a few days' journey west from the Nile 
over a hideous flinty plain, lies the furrow already mentioned, 
tending to the north, and containing the oases of Darfour, 
Selime, the Great and Little Oases, and the parallel valleys 
of the Xatran lakes, and Bahr-Belama, or the "Dry River." 
The Great Oasis, or Oasis of Thebes, is 125 miles long, and 
4 or 5 broad; the Lesser Oasis, separated from it by 40 
miles of desert, is of the same form. Both are rich in ver- 
dure and cultivatiori, with villages amid palm-groves and 
fruit-trees, mixed with the ruins of remote antiquity ; offer- 
ing scenes of peaceful and soft beauty contrasted with the 
surrounding gloom. The X'atran lakes are in the northern 
part of the valley of Xitrea, 35 miles west of the X'ile; the 
southern part is a beautiful quiet spot, that became the re- 
treat of Christian monks in the middle of the second century, 
and at one time contained 360 convents, of which only four 
remain; from these some very valuable manuscripts of old 
date have recently been obtained. 

Another line of oases runs along the latitude of Cairo, with 
fresh-water lakes, consequently no less fertile than the pre- 
ceding. The ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Ammon are in 
one of them. 

Hundreds of miles on the northern edge of the desert, from 
the Atlantic along the southern foot of the Atlas to the Great 
Syrte, are pasture-lands v\-ithout a tree, an ocean of verdure. 
At the Great Syrte the Sahara comes to the shores of the 
Mediterranean, and, indeed, for 1100 miles between the ter- 
mination of the Atlas and the little table-land of Barca, the 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



ground is so unprofitable that the population only amounts 
to about 30,000, and these are mostly wandering tribes who 
feed their flocks on the grassy steppes. Magnificent coun- 
tries lie along the Mediterranean coast, north of the Atlas, 
susceptible of cultivation. History, and the ruins of many 
great cities, attest their former splendour. Even now there 
are many populous commercial cities, and much grain is 
raised, though a great part of these valuable kingdoms is 
badly cultivated, or not cultivated at all. 

The base of the sandy parts of North Africa is stiflf clay. 
In Lower Nubia, between the parallels of Assouan and Esneh, 
red and white granite prevail, followed by argillaceous sand- 
stone. Middle Egypt is calcareous, and lower down the 
Nile sand and alluvium cover the surface. 

The prodigious extent of desert is one of the most extraor- 
dinary circumstances in the structure of the old continent. 
A zone of almost irretrievable desolation prevails from the 
Atlantic Ocean, across Africa and through Central Asia, al- 
most to the Pacific Ocean, through at least 120 degrees of 
longitude. There are also many large districts of the same 
sterile nature in Europe ; and if to these sandy plains the de- 
sert's of Siberia be added, together with all the barren and 
rocky mountain tracts, the unproductive land in the Old 
"World is prodigious. The quantity of salt on the sandy 
plains is enormous, and proves that they have been part of 
the bed of the ocean, or of inland seas, at no very remote 
geological period. The low lands round the Black Sea and 
Caspian, and the Lake of Aral, seem to have been the most 
recently reclaimed, from the great proportion of shells in 
them identical with those now existing in these seas. The 
same may be said of the Sahara Desert, where salt and re- 
cent shells are plentiful. 



CHAPTER VHL 

AMERICAN CONTINENT THE MOUNTAINS OF SOUTH AMERICA 

THE ANDES THE MOUNTAINS OF THE PARIMA AND BRAZIL. 

Some thinner portion of the crust of the globe under the meri- 
dians that traverse the continent of America from Cape Horn 



AMERICAN CONTINENT. • 89 

to the Arctic Ocean must have yielded to the expansive forces 
of the subterranean fires, or been rent by the contraction of the 
strata in cooling. Through this the Andes had arisen, pro- 
ducing the greatest influence on the form of the continent, 
and the peculiar simplicity that prevails in its principal 
mountain systems, which, with very few exceptions, have a 
general tendency from north to south. The continent is 
9000 miles long, and, its form being two great peninsulas 
joined by a long narrow isthmus, it is divided by nature into 
the three parts of South, Central, and North America; yet 
these three are connected by the mighty chain of the Andes, 
but little inferior in height to the Himalaya, running along 
the coast of the Pacific from within the Arctic nearly to the 
Antarctic circle. In this course every variety of climate 
is to be met with, from the rigour of palar congelation to the 
scorching heat of the torrid zone ; while the mountains are 
so high that the same extremes of heat and cold may be 
experienced in the journey of a few hours from the burning 
plains of Peru to the snow-clad peaks above. In this long 
chain there are three distinct varieties of character, nearly, 
though not entirely, corresponding to the three natural 
divisions of the continent. The Andes of South America 
differ materially from those of Central America and Mexico, 
while both are dissimilar to the Andes of North America, 
generally known as the Chippewayan or Rocky Mountains. 
The greatest length of South America from Cape Horn to 
the Isthmus of Panama is about 4550 miles. It is very 
narrow at its southern extremity, but increases in width 
northward to the latitude of Cape Roque on the Atlantic, 
between which and Cape Blanco on the Pacific it attains 
its greatest breadth of nearly 2446 miles. It consists of 
three mountain systems, separated by the basins of three of 
the greatest rivers in the world. The Andes run along the 
western coast from Cape Horn to the Isthmus of Panama, in 
a single chain of small width but majestic height, dipping 
rapidly to the narrow maritime plains of the Pacific, but 
descending on the east in high valleys and occasional offsets 
to plains of vast extent, whose dead level is for hundreds of 
miles as unbroken as that of the ocean by which they are 
bounded. Nevertheless two detached mountain systems 
rise on these plains, one in Brazil between the Rio de la 
Plata and the river of the Amazons ; the other is that of 



90 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Parima and Guiana, lying between the river of the Amazons 
and the Orinoco. 

The great chain of the Andes first raises its crest above 
the waves of the Antarctic Ocean in the majestic dark mass 
of Cape Horn, the southernmost point of the archipelago of 
Terra del Fuego. This group of mountainous islands, equal 
in size to Britain, is cut otl'from the main land by the Strait 
of Magellan. The islands are penetrated in every direction 
by bays and narrow inlets of the sea, or fiords, ending in 
glaciers fed by the snow on the summits of mountains 6000 
feet high. Peat-mosses cover the higher declivities of these 
mountains, and their Hanks are beset with densely entangled 
forests of brown beech, which never loose their dusky 
leaves, producing altogether a savage dismal scene. The 
mountains which occupy the western side of this cluster of 
islands sink down to wide level plains to the east, like the 
continent itself, of which the archipelago is but the southern 
extremity. 

The Pacific comes to the very base of the Patagonian 
Andes for about 1000 miles, from Cape Horn to the 40th 
parallel of south latitude. The whole coast is lined by a 
succession of archipelagos and islands, separated from the 
iron-bound shores by narrow arms of the sea, which, in the 
^m'ore southern part, are in fact profound longitudinal valleys 
of the Andes filled by the ocean, so that the chain of islands 
running parallel to the axes of the mountains is but the tops 
of an exterior range rising above the sea. 

The coast itself for 650 miles is begirt by walls of rock, 
wliich sink into an unfathomable depth, torn by long crevices 
or fiords, similar to those on the Norwegian shore, ending 
in tremendous glaciers, whose masses, falling with a crash 
like thunder, drive the sea in sweeping breakers through 
these chasms. The islands and the main land are thickly 
clothed with forests, which are of a less sombre aspect as 
the latitude decreases. 

South of the archipelago of Chiloe there are few spots 
susceptible of cultivation, and none fit for the permanent 
habitation of man ; but Chiloe itself, the most southerly 
part of the globe that is inhabited, is fertile. There are 
four magnificent volcanoes in the Andes opposite to these 
islands. In southern Chili the Andes retire a little from the 
sea, leaving plains traversed by ranges of hills 2000 or 3000 



THE ANDES. 91 ^ 

feet high, running parallel to the coast, cut by valleys and 
separated by flat basins, the beds of ancient lakes, now 
inhabited. 

The Cordillera itself runs behind in a single chain, about 
20 miles broad, with 12,000 feet of raean elevation. The 
mountain-tops maintain a horizontal line parallel to that of 
perpetual snow, surmounted at long intervals by groups of 
points, or a solitary volcanic cone, in delicate relief on the 
clear blue sky. Of these, Descabezado, the " Beheaded," 
rises 12,102 feet above the sea, and behind Valparaiso, in 
the centre of a knot of mountains, the magnificent vol- 
cano of Aconcagua has an absolute height of 23,000 feet. 
Ail the higher ranges of the Chilian Andes are uninhabitable ; 
there are very few valleys which lead to the central range, 
and these are mostly in southern Chili ; in other places the 
chain is utterly impassable to beasts of burthen. The flat 
parts of these mountains are often volcanic, and the preci- 
pices are frightful. The descent is so abrupt on both sides, 
that northern Chili may be esteemed a declivity of the 
Cordillera. 

About the latitude of Conception the dense forests of 
semi-tropical vegetation cease with the humid equable 
climate ; and as no rain falls in Central Chili for nine 
months in the year, the brown, purple, and tile-red hills and 
mountains are only dotted here and there with low trees and 
bushes ; very soon, however, after the heavy showers have 
moistened the cracked ground, it is covered with a beautiful 
but transient flora. In some valleys it is more permanent 
and of a tropical character, mixed with Alpine plants. In 
southern Chili rain falls only once in two or three years, the 
consequence of which is sterility on the western precipitous 
and unbroken descent of the Andes ; but on the east various 
secondary branches leave the central Cordillera, which 
extend 300 or 400 miles into the plains, wooded to a great 
height. 

The chain takes the name of the Peruvian Andes about 
the 24th degree of south latitude, and is separated from the 
Pacific for 1250 miles by a sandy desert, seldom above 60 
miles broad, on which a drop of rain never falls, where bare 
rocks pierce through the moving sand, and which has a 
mine of rock-salt, a character of deserts generally. The 
width of the coast is nearly the same to the Isthmus of 



92 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Panama, but damp luxuriant forests, fall of orchideae, 
begin about the latitude of Payta, and continue northwards. 

From its southern extremity to the Nevada of Chorolque, 
in 21° 30' S. lat., the Andes are merely a grand range of 
mountains, but north of that the chain becomes a very ele- 
vated narrow table-land, or longitudinal Alpine valley, in 
the direction of the coast, bounded on each side by a 
parallel row of high mountains, rising much above the table- 
land. These parallel Cordilleras are united at various points 
by enormous transverse groups or mountain-knots, or by 
single ranges crossing between them like dykes, a structure 
that prevails to Pasto in 1° 13' 6" . lat. The descent to 
the Pacific is very steep, but the dip is less rapid to the 
east, whence offsets diverge to the level plains. The most 
remarkable peculiarity of the Andes is the absence of trans- 
verse valleys; with the exception of a few in the Patagonian 
and south Chilian Andes there is not an opening through 
these mountains in the remainder of their course to the 
Isthmus of Panama. 

Unlike the table-lands of Asia of the same elevation, 
where cultivation is confined to the more sheltered spots, or 
those still lower in Europe, which are only fit for pasture, 
these lofty regions of the Andes yield exuberant crops of 
every European grain, and have many populous cities en- 
joying the luxuries of life, with universities, libraries, civil 
and religious establishments, at altitudes equal to that of 
the Peak of Teneritfe, which is 12,358 feet above the sea 
level. Villages are placed and mines are wrought at heights 
little less than the top of Mont Blanc. This state is not 
limited to the present times, since these table-lands were 
made the centre of civilization by a race of mankind which 
" bear the same relation to the Incas and the present inhab- 
itants that the Etruscans bear to the ancient Romans and to 
the Italians of our own days." 

The table-land of Desaguadero, one of the most remark- 
able of these, has an absolute altitude of 13,000 feet, and a 
breadth varying from 30 to 60 miles : it stretches 500 miles 
along the top of the Andes, between the transverse moun- 
tain-group of Las Lipez, in 20° S. lat., and the enormous 
mountain-knot of Vilcanata and Cusco, which, extending 
from east to west, shuts in the valley on the north, occupying 
an area three times as large as Switzerland, and rising 8300 



THE ANDES. 93 

feet above the surface of the table-land, from which some 
idea may be formed of the gigantic scale of the Andes. 
This table-land or valley is bounded on each side by the 
two grand chains of the Bolivian Andes : that on the west 
is the Cordillera of the coast; the range on the east side is 
the Cordillera Reale. These two rows of mountains lie so 
near the edge that the whole breadth of the table-land, 
including both, is only 300 miles. All the snowy peaks of 
the Cordilleras of the coast, varying from 18,000 to 22,000 
feet in absolute height, are either active volcanoes or of 
volcanic origin, and, with the exception of the volcano of 
Uvinas, they are all situate upon the maritime declivity of 
the table-land, and not more than 60 miles from the Pacific ; 
consequently the descent is very abrupt. The eastern Cor- 
dillera, which begins at the metalliferous mountains of Pasco 
and Potosi, is not more than 17,000 feet high to the south, 
and below the level of perpetual snow, but its northern por- 
tion contains the three peaked mountains of Sorata, 25,000 
feet above the sea, and is one of the most magnificent chains 
in the Andes. The snowy part begins with the gigantic 
mass of Illimani, whose serrated ridges, elongated in the 
direction of the axis of the Andes, rise 24,000 feet above 
the ocean. The lowest glacier on its southern slope does 
not come below 16,500 feet, and the valley of Totoral, a 
mere gulf 18,000 feet deep, in which Vesuvius might stand, 
comes between Illimani and the Nevada of Tres Cruces, 
from whence the Cordillera Reale runs northward in a con- 
tinuous line of snow-clad peaks to the group of Vilcanata 
and Cusco, which unites it with the Cordilleras of the coast. 
The valley or table-land of Desaguadero, occupying 
150,000 square miles, has a considerable variety of surface ; 
in the south, throughout the mining district, it is poor and 
cold. There Potosi, the highest city in the world, stands, 
at an absolute elevation of 13,350 feet, on the declivity of 
a mountain celebrated for its silver-mines at the height of 
16,060 feet. Chiquisaca, the capital of Bolivia, containing 
13,000 inhabitants, lies to the south-east of Potosi, in the 
midst of cultivated fields. The northern part of the valley 
is populous, and productive in wheat, maize, and other 
grain ; and there is the Lake of Titicaca, twenty times as 
large as the Lake of Geneva. The islands and shores of 
this lake still exhibit ruins of gigantic magnitude, monuments 



94 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

of a people more ancient than the Incas. The modem city 
of La Paz d'Ayachuco with 40,000 inhabitants, on its southern 
border, stands in the most sublime situation that can be ima- 
gined, having the vast Nevada of Illimani to the north, and 
the no less magnificent Sorata to the south. The two ranges^ 
of the Bolivian Andes in su('h close approximation, with, 
their smoking cones and serrated ridges, form one of the 
most august scenes in nature. 

Many offsets leave the eastern side of the Cordillera 
Reale, which terminate in the great plain of Chiquitos and 
Paraguay ; the most important is the Sierra Nevada de 
Cochobamba, which bounds a rich valley of the same name 
on the north, and, after dividing the basins of the Rio de la 
Plata from that of the Amazons for 200 miles, ends near the 
town of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. 

There are fertile valleys and plains in the snow-capped 
group of Vilcanata and Cusco. The city of Cusco, which 
contains nearly 50,000 inhabitants, was the capital of the 
empire of the Incas, and the ruins of the Temple of the 
Sun still bear marks of its former splendour. Two ancient 
Peruvian roads lead from Cusco to Quito, in no respect 
inferior to the old Roman roads: that over the mountain 
plains is higher than the Peak of TeneriiTe. North from 
Cusco lies the plain of Bombon, which assumes the bleak 
and dismal character common to the mining districts. It is 
14,000 feet above the sea, and only 18 miles wide between 
the Cordilleras that bouml its sides, and which send their 
streams into the Lake of Lauri or Laurichoco, the source of 
the river of the Amazons. There are many small lakes on 
the table-lands and high valleys of the Andes, some even 
within the range of perpetual snow. They are very cold 
and unfathomably deep, often of the purest sea-green colour, 
probably the craters of old volcanoes. 

The crest of the Andes is split into three rows of moun- 
tains running from south to north from the transverse group 
of Pasco and Huanuco, which shuts in the valley of Bombon 
between the 11th and 10th parallels of south latitude: that 
in the centre separates the wide fertile valley of the upper 
Maranon from the still richer valley of Huallago. The 
western chain alone reaches the line of perpetual snow, 
and no mountain north of this for 400 miles to Chimborazo 
arrives at the snow-line. 



THE ANDES. 95 

North from the group of Loxas, celebrated for its forests 
of the cinchona or Peruvian bark tree, the summit of the 
Andes spreads into a narrow table-land, which extends 350 
miles in the direction of the chain, passing through the 
republic of the Equator to the mountain-group of Pastos in 
New Grenada. It is hemmed in on each side by Cordilleras 
of gigantic size, and divided by the cross ridges of the 
Paramo del Assuay and Chisinche into three parts, namely, 
the plains of Cuenpa, Tassia, and Quito, by much the 
greatest. The plain of Cuenpa is uninteresting, but the 
plain of Tassia is very- magnifient ; the huge dome-shaped 
Chimborazo rises in its eastern Cordillera 21,428 feet above 
the sea, yet not the highest mountain in the Andes ; and in 
the same Cordillera are the pyramidal peaks of Illiniza, the 
wreck of an ancient volcano. The height of Illiniza above 
the Pacific and above the table-land was measured by the 
French Academicians, and from their measurement they 
obtained the height of Quito, and an approximate value of 
the barometrical coefficient. In the western Cordillera lies 
the ever-agitated volcano of Sangay, together with Cotopaxi, 
the most beautiful of volcanoes, whose cone of dazzling 
white is six times as high as that of the Peak of Teneritfe. 

The table-land of Quito, one of the largest and finest in 
the Andes, is 200 miles long and 30 wide, with an absolute 
altitude of 10,000 feet, bounded by the most magnificent 
series of volcanoes and mountains in the New World. A 
peculiar interest is attached to two of the many magnificent 
volcanoes in the parallel Cordilleras that flank it on each 
side. In the eastern chain the beautiful snow-clad cone of 
Cayarabe is traversed by the equator, the most remarkable 
division of the globe ; and in the western Cordillera the 
cross still stands on the summit of Pinchincha, 15,924 feet 
above the Pacific, which served for a signal to Messieurs 
Bouguer and Condamine in the measurement of a degree of 
the meridian. 

Some parts of the plain of Quito to the south are sterile, 
but the soil generally is good, and perpetual spring clothes 
it with exuberant vegetation. The city of Quito, containing 
70,000 inhabitants, on the side of Pinchincha, has an abso- 
lute height of 9000 feet. The city is well built and hand- 
some ; the churches are splendid ; it possesses universities, 
the comforts and luxuries of civilized life, in a situation of unri- 



96 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

vailed grandeur and beauty. Thus on the very summit of 
the Andes there is a world by itself, with its mountains and 
its valleys, its lakes and rivers, popidous towns and culti- 
vated fields. Many monuments of the Incas are still found 
in good })reservation in these plains, where the scenery is 
magnificent ; eleven volcanoes are visible from one spot. 
Although the Andes are inferior in height to the Himalaya, 
yet the domes of trachyte, the truncated cones of the active 
volcanoes, and the serrated ruins of those that are extinct, 
mixed with the bald features of primary mountains, give an 
infinitely greater variety to the scene, while the smoke, and 
very often the flame, issuing from these regions of perpetual 
snow, increase its sublimity. Stupendous as these moun- 
tains appear even from the plains of the table-land, they are 
merely the inequalities of the tops of the Andes, the serrated 
summit of that mighty chain. 

Between the large group of Los Pastes, containing several 
active volcanoes, and the group of Los Papos in the second 
degree of north latitude, the table-land is only 6900 feet 
above the sea ; and north of the latter mountain-knot the 
crest of the Andes splits into three Cordilleras, which meet 
no more. The most westerly of these, the continuation of 
the great chain, divides the valley of the river Cauca from 
the Gulf of Panama ; it is only 5000 feet high, and the 
lowest of the three. Though but 20 miles broad, it is so 
steep, and so difficult to pass, that travellers cannot go on 
mules, but are carried on men's shoulders; it is exceedingly 
rich in gold and platina. The central branch, or Cordil- 
lera of Quindici, runs due north between the Magdalena 
and Cauca, with a mean height of 10,000 feet, though rising 
to 18,314 feet on the Peak of Tolima. The most easterly 
of the three Cordilleras, called the Sierra de la Summa Paz, 
spreads out into the table-land of Sante Fe de Bogota, 
Tunja, and others, which have an elevation of about 9000 
feet, and its precipices border the rivers Orinoco and Meta. 
The tremendous crevice of Icononza occurs in the path 
leading from the city of Sante Fe de Bogota to the banks of 
the Magdalena. It probably was formed by an earthquake, 
and is like an empty mineral vein, across which are two 
natural bridges ; the lowest is composed of stones that have 
been jammed between the rocks in their fall. This Cordil- 
lera comprises the Andes of Cundinamarca andMerida, and 



THE ANDES. 97 

goes north-east through Grenada to the 10th northern paral- 
lel, where it joins the coast-chain of Venezuela or Caraccas, 
which runs due east, and ends at Cape Paria in the Carib- 
bean Sea, or rather at the eastern extremity of the island of 
Trinidad. This coast-chain is so majestic and beautiful that 
Baron Humboldt says it is like the Alps rising out of the 
sea without their snow. The insulated group of Santa 
Martha, 19,000 feet high, deeply covered with snow, stands 
on an extensive plain between the delta of the Magdalena 
and the sea-lake of Maracaybo, and is a landmark to mariners 
far off in the Caribbean Sea. 

The passes over the Chilian Andes are numerous; that of 
Portiila, leading from St. Jago to Mendoza, is the highest ; 
it crosses two ridges; the most elevated is 14,365 feet above 
the sea, and vegetation ceases far below its summit. Those 
in Peru are higher, though none reach the snow-line. In 
Bolivia the mean elevation of the passes in the western and 
eastern Cordilleras is 14,892 and 14,422 feet respectively: 
the peaks in the eastern Cordillera are the highest, but the 
passes in the western are on the most elevated part of the 
range, while those in the eastern are on the lowest. That 
leading from Sorata to the auriferous valley of Tipuani is 
perhaps the highest in Bolivia. From the total absence of 
vegetation and the intense cold it is supposed to be 16,000 
feet above the Pacific ; those to the north are but little lower. 
The pass of Quindiu in Colombia, though only 11,500 feet 
high, is the most difficult of all across the Andes : but those 
crossing the mountain-knots from one table-land to another 
are the most dangerous; for example, that over the Paramo 
del Assuay, in the plain of Quito, where the road is nearly 
as high as Mont Blanc, and travellers not unfrequently perish 
from cold winds in attempting it. 

On the western side of the Andes little or no rain falls, 
except at their most southern extremity, and scanty vegeta- 
tion appears only in spots, or in small valleys. Excessive 
heat and moisture combine to cover the eastern side and its 
offsets with tangled forests of large trees and dense brush- 
wood. This exuberance diminishes as the height increases, 
till at last the barren rocks are covered only by snow and 
glaciers. Nothing can surpass the desolation of these ele- 
vated regions, where nature has been shaken by terrific con- 
vulsions. The dazzling snow fatigues the eye ; the huge 
9 



98 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

masses of bald rock, the mural precipices, and the chasms 
yawning into dark unknown depths, strike the imagination ; 
while the crash of the avalanche, or the rolling thunder of 
the volcano, startles the ear. In tbe dead of night, when 
the sky is clear and the wind hushed, the hollow moaning 
of the volcanic fire fills the Indian with superstitious dread 
in the deathlike stillness of these solitudes. 

In the very elevated plains in the transverse groups, such 
as that of Bombon, however pure the sky, the landscape is 
lurid and colourless; the dark blue shadows are sharply de- 
fined, and from the thinness of the air it is hardly possible 
to make a just estimate of distance. Changes of weather 
are sudden and violent ; clouds of black vapour arise, and 
are carried by fierce winds over the barren plains ; snow and 
hail are driven with irresistible impetuosity ; and thunder- 
storms come on, loud and awful, without warning. Not- 
withstanding the thinness of the air, the crash of the peals is 
quite appalling, w^hile the lightning runs along the scorched 
grass, and sometimes, issuing from the ground, destroys a 
team of mules or a flock of sheep at one flash.* 

Currents of warm air are occasionally met with on the crest 
of the Andes — an extraordinary phenomenon in such gelid 
heights, which is not yet accounted for: they generally occur 
two hours after sunset, are local and narrow, not exceeding 
a few fathoms in width; similar to the equally partial blasts 
of hot air in the Alps. A singular instance, probably of earth- 
light, occurs in crossing the Andes from Chili to Mendoza: 
on this rocky scene a peculiar brightness occasionally rests, 
a kind of indescribable reddish light, which vanishes during 
the winter rains, and is not perceptible on sunny days. Dr. 
Poeppig ascribes the phenomenon to the dryness of the air; 
he was confirmed in his opinion from afterwards observing a 
similar brightness on the coast of Peru, and it has also been 
seen in Egypt. 

The Andes descend to the eastern plains by a series of 
cultivated levels, as those of Tucuman, Salta, and Jujuy, in 
the republic of La Plata, with many others. That of Tucu- 
man is 3600 feet above the sea, the garden of the republic. 

The low lands to the east of the Andes are divided by 
the table-lands and mountains of Parima and Brazil into 

* Dr. Poeppig's ' Travels in South America.' 



THE PARIMA. 99' 

three parts, of very different aspect — the deserts and pampas 
of Patagonia and Buenos Ayres ; the Silvas, or woody basin 
of the Amazons; and the Llanos, or grassy steppes of the 
Orinoco, The eastern table- lands nowhere exceed 2500 
feet of absolute height ; and the plains are so low and flat, 
especially at the foot of the Andes, that a rise of 1000 feet 
in the Atlantic Ocean would submerge more than half the 
continent of South America. 

The system of the Parima is a group of mountains scat- 
tered over a table-land not more than 2000 feet above the 
sea, which extends 600 or 700 miles from east to west, be- 
tween the river Orinoco, the Rio Negro, the Amazons, and 
the Atlantic Ocean. It is quite unconnected with the Andes, 
being 80 leagues east from the mountains of New Grenada. 
It begins 60 or 70 miles from the coast of Venezuela, and 
ascends by four successive terraces to undulating plains which 
come within one or two degrees of the equator, and is twice 
as long as it is broad. 

Seven chains, besides groups of mountains, cross the table- 
land from west to east, of which the chief is the Sierra del 
Parima. Beginning at the mouth of the Meta, it crosses the 
plains of Esmeralda to the borders of Brazil, whence, under 
the name of the Sierra Pacaraime, it goes to the left bank of 
the Rupuniri, a tributary of the Essequibo; then, bending to 
the south, it runs in a tortuous line between Brazil and 
Guiana to the Atlantic. This chain, not more than 600 
feet high, is everywhere escarped, and forms the watershed 
between the tributaries of the Amazons and those of the Ori- 
noco, the Essequibo, and the rivers of Guiana. The Orinoco, 
rises on the northern side of the Sierra del Parima, and in 
its circuitous course over the plains of Esmeralda it breaks 
through the western extremity of that chain in two places, 
12 leagues asunder, where it dashes with violence against 
the transverse shelving rocks and dykes, forming the splen- 
did series of rapids and cataracts of Maypures and Atures, 
from whence the Parima Mountains have got the name of the 
Cordillera of the cataracts of the Orinoco. The chain is of 
granite, which forms the banks and fills the bed of the river, 
covered with luxuriant tropical vegetation, especially palm- 
forests. In the district of the Upper Orinoco, near Chari- 
chana, there is a granite rock which emits musical sounds 
at sunrise, like the notes of an organ, occasioned by the dif- 



100 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

ference of temperature of the external air and that which 
fills the deep narrow crevices with which the rock is every- 
where torn. Something of the same kind occurs at Mount 
Sinai. 

The other parallel chains that extend over the table-land 
in Venezuela and Guiana are separated by flat savannahs, 
generally barren in the dry season, but after the rains 
covered with a carpet of emerald- green grass, often six feet 
high, mixed with flowers. The vegetation in these coun- 
tries is splendid beyond imagination : the regions of the Upper 
Orinoco and Rio Negro, and of almost all the mountains and 
banks of rivers in Guiana, are clothed with majestic and im- 
penetrable forests, whose moist and hot recesses are the abode 
of the singular and beautiful race of the Orchidcce and tan- 
gled creepers of many kinds. 

Although all the mountains of the system of Parima are 
wild and rugged, they are not high; the inaccessible peak 
of the Cerro Uuida, which rises insulated 7155 feet above 
the plain of Esmeralda, is the culminating point, and the 
highest mountain in South America east of the Andes. 

The fine savannahs of the Rupununi were the country of 
romance in the days of Queen Elizabeth. South of the Pa- 
caraime, near an inlet of the river, the far-famed city of Manoa 
was supposed to stand, the object of the unfortunate expedi- 
tion of Sir Walter Raleigh; about 11 miles south-west of 
which is situated the Lake Amucu, "the Great Lake with 
golden banks," — great only during the periodical floods. 

On the southern side of the basin of the river Amazons 
lies the table-land of Brazil, nowhere more than 2500 feet 
high, which occupies half of that empire, together with part 
of the Argentine Republic and Uruguay Orientale. Its form 
is a triangle, whose apex is at the confluence of the rivers 
Marmora and IBeni, and its base extends, near the shore of 
the Atlantic, from the mouth of the Rio de la Plata to within 
three degrees of the equator. It is difficult to define the 
limits of this vast territory, but some idea may be formed of 
it by following the direction of the rapids and cataracts of 
the rivers descending from it to the plains around. Thus 
a line drawn from the fall of the river Tocantines, in 3° 30' 
S. lat., to the cataracts of the Madiera, in the eighth degree 
of south latitude, will nearly mark its northern boundary: 
from thence the line would run S.W. to the junction of the 



THE PARIMA. 101 

Marmora and Beni ; then, turning to the S.E. along the Serro 
dos Paricis, it would proceed south to the cataract of the 
Parana, called the Sete Quedas, in 24° 30' S. lat. ; and 
lastly, from thence, by the great falls of the river Iguassu, 
to the Morro de Santa Martha, at the mouth of the Rio de la 
Plata. 

Chains of mountains, nearly parallel, extend from south- 
west to north-east, 700 miles along the base of the triangle, 
with a breadth of about 400 miles. Of these the Sierra do 
Mar, or the " coast-chain," reaches from the river Uruguay 
to Cape San Roque, never more distant than 20 miles from 
the Atlantic, except to the south of the bay of Santos, where 
it is 80. Offsets diverge to the right and left : the granite 
peak of Corcovedo, in the bay of Rio de Janeiro, 2306 feet 
high, is the end of one. The parallel chain of Espenhaco, 
beginning near the town of San Paolo, and forming the wes- 
tern boundary of the basin of the Rio San Francisco, is the 
highest in Brazil, one of its mountains being 8426 feet above 
the sea. All the mountains in Brazil have a general ten^ 
dency from S.W. to N.E., except the transverse chain of 
Sierra das Vertentes, which begins 60 miles south of Villa 
Rica, and runs in a tortuous line to its termination near the 
junction of the Marmora and Beni, in 11° S. lat. It forms 
the watershed of the tributaries of the San Francesco and 
Amazons on the north, and those of the Rio de la Plata on 
the south ; its greatest height is 3500 feet above the sea, but 
its western part, the Sierra Paricis, is merely a succession of 
detached hills. This chain, the coast-chain of Venezuela 
and the mountains of Parima, are the-only ranges on the con- 
tinent of America that do not entirely, or in some degree, 
lie in the direction of the meridians. 

Magnificent forests of tall trees, bound together by tangled 
creeping and parasitical plants, clothe the declivities of the 
mountains, and line the borders of the Brazilian rivers, 
where the soil is rich and the verdure brilliant. Many of 
the plains on the table-land bear- a coarse nutritious grass 
after the rains only ; but vast undulating tracts are always 
verdant with excellent pasture, intermixed with fields of 
corn : some parts are bare sand and rolled quartz ; and the 
Campas Paricis, north of the Sierra Vestentes, in Matto Grasso, 
is a sandy desert of unknown extent, similar to the Great 
Gobi on the table-land of Tibet. 
9* 



102 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE LOW LANDS OF SOUTH AMERICA DESERT OF PATAGONIA 

THE PAMPAS OF BUENOS AYRES — THE SILVAS OF THE 

AMAZONS— THE LLANOS OF THE ORINOCO AND VENEZUELA 
— -GEOLOGICAL NOTICE. 

The southern plains are the most barren of the three great 
tracts of American low lands ; they stretch from Terra del 
Fuego over 27 degrees of latitude, or 1900 miles, nearly to 
Tucuman and the mountains of Brazil. Palms grow at one 
end, deep snow covers the other many months in the year. 
This enormous plain, of 1,620,000 square miles, begins on the 
eastern part of Terra del Fuego, which is a flat covered with 
trees, and therefore superior to its continuation on the con- 
tinent through eastern Patagonia, which, for 800 miles from 
the land's end to beyond the Rio Colorado, is a desert of 
shingle. It is occasionally diversified by huge boulders, 
tufts of brown grass, low bushes armed with spines, brine 
lakes, incrustations of salt white as snow, and by black 
basaltic platforms, like plains of iron, at the foot of the 
Andes, barren as the rest. Eastern Patagonia, however, is 
not one universal flat, but a succession of shingly horizontal 
plains at higher and higher levels, separated by long lines 
of cliffs or escarpments, the gable ends of the tiers or plains. 
The ascent is small, for even at the foot of the Andes the 
highest of these platforms is only 3000 feet above the ocean. 
The plains are here and there intersected by a ravine or a 
stream, the waters of which do not fertilize the blighted soil. 
The transition from intense heat to intense cold is rapid, and 
piercing winds often rush in hurricanes over these deserts, 
shunned even by the Indian, except when he crosses them 
to visit the tombs of his fathers. The shingle ends a few 
miles to the north of the Rio Colorado: there the red cal- 
careous earth of the Pampas begins, monotonously covered 
with coarse tufted grass without a tree or bush. This coun- 
try, nearly as level as the sea, and without a stone, extends 
almost to the table-land of Brazil, and for 1000 miles be- 



THE PAMPAS. 103 

tween the Atlantic and the Andes, interrupted only at vast 
distances by a solitary umbii, the only tree of this soil, 
rising like a great landmark. This wide space, though 
almost destitute of water, is not all of the same description. 
In the Pampas of Buenos Ayres there are four distinct 
regions. For 180 miles west from Buenos Ayres they are 
covered with thisdes and lucern of the most vivid green so 
long as the moisture from the rain lasts. In spring the 
verdure fades, and a month afterwards the thistles shoot up 
10 feet high, so dense and so protected by spines that they 
are impenetrable. During summer the dried stalks are 
broken by the wind, and the lucern again spreads freshness 
over the ground. The Pampas for 430 miles west of this 
region is a thicket of long tufted luxuriant grass, intermixed 
with gaudy flowers, affording inexhaustible pasture to thou- 
sands of horses and c-attle ; this is followed by a tract of 
swamps and bogs, to which succeeds a region of ravines 
and stones, and, lastly, a zone, reaching to the Andes, of 
thorny bushes and dwarf trees in one dense thicket. The 
flat plains in Entre Rios in Uruguay, those of Santa Fe, and 
a great part of Cordova and Tucuman, are of sward, with 
cattle farms. The banks of the Parana, and other tributaries 
of the La Plata, are adorned with an infinite variety of 
tropical productions, especially the graceful tribe of palms ; 
and the river islands are bright with orange-groves. A 
desert of sand, called II Gran Chaco, exists w^est of the 
Paraguay, the vegetable produce of which is confined to 
varieties of the aloe and cactus tribes, the last the food of 
the cochineal insect, which forms a valuable article of com- 
merce. Adjoining this desert are the unknown regions of 
the Chiquitos and Moxos, covered with forests and jungle. 

The Pampas of Buenos Ayres, 1000 feet above the sea, 
sinks to its level along the foot of the Andes, where the 
streams from the mountains collect in large lakes, swamps, 
lagoons of prodigious size, and wide-spreading salines. The 
swamp or lagoon of Ybera, of 1000 square miles, is entirely 
covered with aquatic plants. These swamps are swollen to 
thousands of square miles by the annual floods of the rivers, 
which almost inundate the Pampas, leaving a fertilizing coat 
of mud. Multitudes of animals perish in the floods, and the 
drought that sometimes succeeds is more fatal. Between 
the years 1830 and 1832 two millions of cattle died from 



104 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

want of food. Millions of animals are sometimes destroyed 
by casual and dreadful conflagrations in these countries, 
when covered with dry grass and thistles. 

Tiie Silvas of the river of the Amazons, lying in the 
centre of the continent, form the second division of the South 
American low lands. This country is more uneven than the 
Pampas, and the vegetation is so dense that it can only be 
penetrated by sailing up the river or its tributaries. The 
forests not only cover the basin of the Amazons, but also its 
limiting mountain-chains, the Sierra Vertentes and Parima ; 
so that the whole forms an area of woodland more than six 
times the size of France, lying between the eighteenth 
parallel of south latitude and the seventh of north ; conse- 
quently intertropical and traversed by the equator. There 
are some marshy savannahs between the third and fourth 
degrees of north latitude, and some grassy steppes south of 
the Pacaraim chain; but they are insignificant compared 
with the Silvas, which extend 1500 miles along the river, 
varying in breadth from 350 to 800 miles, and probably 
more. According to Baron Humboldt, the soil, enriched 
for ages by the spoils of the forest, consists of the rich- 
est mould. The heat is sufTocating in the deep and dark 
recesses of these primeval woods, where not a breath of 
air penetrates, and where, after being drenched by the pe- 
riodical rains, the damp is so excessive that a blue mist 
rises in the early morning among the huge stems of the trees, 
and envelops the entangled creepers stretching from bough 
to bough. A deathlike stillness prevails from sunrise to 
sunset ; then the thousands of animals that inhabit these 
forests join in one loud discordant roar, not continuous, 
but in bursts. The beasts seem to be periodically and 
unanimously roused, by some unknown impulse, till the 
forest rings in universal uproar. Profound silence prevails 
at midnight, which is broken at the dawn of morning by 
another general roar of the wild chorus. Nightingales, too, 
have their fits of silence and song : after a pause, they 

" all burst forth in choral minstrelsy, 

As if some sudden gale had swept at once 
A hundred airy harps."* 

The whole forest often resounds, when the animals, startled 

* Wordsworth. 



THE LLANOS. 105 

from their sleep, scream in terror at the noise made by 
bands of its inhabitants flying from some night-prowling foe. 
Their anxiety and terror before a thunder-storm is exces- 
sive, and all nature seems to partake in the dread. The 
tops of the lofty trees rustle ominously, though not a breath 
of air agitates them ; a hollow whistling in the high regions 
of the atmosphere comes as a warning from the black floating 
vapour ; midnight darkness envelops the ancient forests, 
which soon after groan and creak with the blast of the hur- 
ricane. The gloom is rendered still more hideous by the 
vivid lightning and the stunning crash of thunder. Even 
fishes are affected with the general consternation ; for in a 
few minutes the Amazons rages in waves like a stormy sea. 
The Llanos of the Orinoco and Venezuela, covered with 
long grass, form the third department of South American 
low lands, and occupy 153,000 square miles between the 
deltas of the Orinoco and the river Coqueta, flat as the sur- 
face of the sea ; frequently there is not an eminence a foot 
high in 270 square miles. They are twice as long as they are 
broad ; and, as the wind blows constantly from the east, the 
climate is the more ardent the farther west. These steppes 
for the most part are destitute of trees or bushes, yet in some 
places they are dotted with the mauritia and other palm-trees. 
Flat as these plains are, there are in some places two kinds 
of inequalities: one consists of banks or shoals of grit or 
compact limestone, five or six feet high, perfectly level for 
several leagues, and imperceptible except on their edges ; 
the other inequality can only be detected by the barometer 
or levelling instruments ; it is called a Mesa, and is an emi- 
nence rising imperceptibly to the height of some fathoms. 
Small as the elevation is, a mesa forms the watershed, from 
S.W. to N.E., between the affluents of the Orinoco and the 
streams flowing to the northern coast of Terra Firma. In 
the wet season, from April to the end of October, the tropical 
rains pour down in torrents, and hundreds of square miles 
of the Llanos are inundated by the floods of the rivers. 
The water is sometimes 12 feet deep in the hollows, in 
which so many horses and other animals perish that the 
ground smells of musk, an odour peculiar to many South 
American quadrupeds. From the flatness of the country, 
too, the waters of some affluents of the Orinoco are driven 
backwards by the floods of that river, especially when aided 



106 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

by the wind, and form temporary lakes. When the waters 
subside these steppes, manured by the sediment, are mantled 
with verdure, and produce ananas with occasional groups 
of palm-trees, and mimosas skirt the rivers. When the dry 
weather returns, the grass is burnt to powder, the air is 
filled with dust raised by currents occasioned by difference 
of temperature, even where there is no wind. If by any 
accident a spark of fire falls on the scorched plains, a con- 
flagration spreads from river to river, destroying every 
animal, and leaves the clayey soil sterile for years, till 
vicissitudes of weather crumble the brick-like surface into 
earth. 

The Llanos lie between the equator and the Tropic of 
Cancer ; consequently the mean annual temperature is about 
84° of Fahrenheit. The heat is most intense during the 
rainy season, when tremendous thunder-storms are of com- 
mon occurrence. 



GEOLOGY OF SOUTH AMERICA. 

The most remarkable circumstance in the geological ar- 
rangement of South America is the vast but partial develop- 
ment of volcanic force, which is confined to the chain of the 
Andes, and even in some parts only to the western Cordillera, 
while not a trace of it is to be found either on the great plains 
to the east, or on the table-lands which divide them. The 
actual vents occur in linear groups. The most southern of 
these extends from Yntales in Patagonia to the volcanoes of 
central Chili, a distance of 800 miles : the second volcanic 
line, occupying 600 miles of latitude, lies between Araquipo 
and Patas :* the third extends over 300 miles between 
Riobamba and Popayan. That these groups of active vol- 
canoes are connected there can be little doubt, as they are 
only separated by a few hundred miles ; and thus there is a 
line of volcanic action, 1700 miles long, entirely confined to 
the Andes, to which the volcanic islands of Juan Fernandez 
and the Galapagos form a parallel line. 

Granite, which seems to be the base of the whole conti- 
nent, is widely spread to the east and south : it appears in 

* Mr, Darwin. 



GEOLOGY OF SOUTH AMERICA. 107 

Terra del Fuego and in the Patagonian Andes abundantly 
and at great elevations-; but it comes into view so rarely in 
the other parts of the' chain that Baron Humboldt says a 
person might travel years in the Andes of Peru and Quito 
without falling in with it: he never saw it at a greater 
height above the sea than 11,500 feet. Gneiss is here and 
there associated with the granite, but mica-schist is by much 
the most common of the crystalline rocks. Quartz is also 
much developed, generally mixed wnth mica, and rich in 
gold, mercury, specular iron, and sulphur. It sometimes 
extends several leagues in the western declivities of Peru, 
6000 feet thick. Red sandstone, of vast dimensions, and 
of different geological periods, occurs in the Andes, and on 
the table-land east of them, where in some places, as in 
Colombia, it spreads over thousands of miles to the shores 
of the Atlantic. It is widely extended at altitudes of 
10,000 and 12,000 feet : for example, on the table-lands 
of Tarqui and Cuenja. Coal is sometimes associated with 
it, and is found at Huenca in Peru, 14,750 feet above 
the sea. 

Porphyry abounds all over the Andes, from Patagonia to 
Colombia, at every elevation, on the slopes and summits of 
the mountains, sometimes 19,000 feet thick, but not uni- 
formly of the same age or nature. The variety of most fre- 
quent occurrence is rich in metals, while another is destitute 
of them. The bare and precipitous porphyry rocks give 
great variety to the colouring of the Andes, especially in 
Chili, where purple, tile-red, and brown are contrasted witli 
the snow on the summit of the chain.* 

Trachyte is almost as abundant as porphyry. Many of 
the loftiest parts and all the great dome-shaped mountains 
in the Andes are formed of it. Masses of this rock, from 
14,000 to 18,000 feet thick, are seen in Chimborazo and 
Pinchincha. Prodigious quantities of volcanic products, 
lava, tufa, and obsidian, occur on the western face of the 
Andes, where volcanoes are active. On the eastern side 
there are none. This is especially the case in that part of 
the chain lying between the equator and Chili. The Boli- 
vian Cordilleras, which are the boundary of the valley of 
Desaguerado, furnish a striking example. The Cordillera 

* Dr. Pceppig. 



108 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

of the coast is entirely composed of obsidian, trachyte, and 
tufa, while the eastern Cordillera consists of syenite, mica- 
schist, porphyry, and sandstone ; marl, containing gy[isum, 
oolitic limestone, and rock salt, of the most beautiful colours. 
Towards Chili and throughout the Chilian range the case is 
different, because active volcanoes are there in the centre of 
the chain. 

Sea-shells of different geological periods are found at 
various elevations, which shows that many upheavings and 
subsidences have taken place in the chain of the Andes, 
especially at its southern extremity. Stems of large trees, 
which Mr. Darwin found in a fossil state in the Upsallata 
range, a collateral branch of the Chilian Andes, now 700 
miles distant from the Atlantic, exhibit a remarkable example 
of such vicissitudes. These trees, with the volcanic soil on 
which they had grown, had sunk from the beach to the 
bottom of a deep ocean, from which, after five alternations of 
sedimentary deposits and deluges of submarine lava of pro- 
digious thickness, the whole mass was raised up, and now 
forms the Upsallata chain. Subsequently by the wearing of 
streams, the imbedded trunks have been brought into view 
in a silicified state, projecting from the soil on which they 
grew- — now solid rock. 

" Vast and scarcely comprehensible as such changes must 
ever appear, yet they have all occurred within a period 
recent when compared with the history of the Cordillera ; 
and the Cordillera itself is absolutely modern, compared 
with many of the fossiliferous strata of Europe and Ame- 
rica."* 

From the quantity of shingle and sand on the valleys in 
the lower ridges, as well as at altitudes from 7000 to 9000 
feet above the present level of the sea, it appears that the 
whole area of the Chilian Andes has been raised by a 
gradual motion ; and the coast is now rising by the same 
imperceptible degrees, though it is sometimes suddenly 
elevated by a succession of small upheavings of a few feet 
by earthquakes, similar to that which shook the continent 
for a thousand miles on the 20th of February, 1835. 

On the eastern side of the Andes the land from Terra del 
Fuego to the Rio de la Plata has been raised en masse by 

• Darwin's Journal of Travels in South America. 



GEOLOGY OF SOUTH AMERICA. 109 

one great elevating force, acting equally and impercepti- 
bly for 2000 miles, within the period of the shell-fish now 
existing, which in many parts of these plains even still 
retain their colours. The gradual upward movement was 
interrupted- by at least eight long periods of rest, marked 
by the edges of the successive plains, which, extending 
from south to north, had formed so many lines of sea-coast, 
as they rose higher and higher between the Atlantic and the 
Andes. It appears, from the shingle and fossil shells found 
on both sides of the Cordillera, that the whole south-western 
extremity of the continent has been rising slowly for a long 
time, and indeed the whole Andean chain. 

The instability of the southern part of the continent is less 
astonishing if it be considered that at the time of the earth- 
quake of 1835 the volcanoes in the Chilian Andes were in 
eruption contemporaneously for 720 miles in one direction, 
and 400 in another; so that in all probability there was a 
subterranean lake of burning lava below this end of the con- 
tinent twice as large as the Blaak Sea.* 

The terraced plains of Patagonia, which extend hundreds 
of miles along the coast, are tertiary strata, not in basins, 
but in one great deposit, above which lies a thick stratum 
of white pumaceous substance, extending at least 500 miles, 
a tenth part of which consists of marine infusoria. Over 
the whole lies th^ shingle already mentioned, spread over 
the coast for 700 miles in length, with a mean breadth of 
200 miles, and 50 feet thick. These myriads of pebbles, 
chiefly of porphyry, have been torn from the rocks of the 
Andes, and water-worn, at a period subsequent to the de- 
position of the tertiary strata — a period of incalculable dura- 
tion. All the plains of Terra del Fuego and Patagonia, on 
both sides of the Andes, are strewed with huge boulders, 
transported by icebergs, which had descended to lower lati- 
tudes in ancient times than they do now— observations of 
great interest, which we owe to Mr. Darwin. 

The stunted vegetation of these sterile plains was suffi- 
cient to nourish large animals of the pachydermata tribe, 
now extinct, even at a period when the present shell-fish of 
the Patagonian seas existed. 

The Pampas of Buenos Ayres are entirely alluvial, the 

* Darwin's .Touriial of Travels in Soutli America. 

10 



110 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

deposit of the Rio de la Plata. Granite prevails to the 
extent of 2000 miles along the coast of Brazil, and with 
syenite forms the base of the table-land. The superstructure 
of the latter consists of metamorphic and old igneous rocks, 
sandstone, clay-slate, limestone, in which are large caverns 
with bones of extinct animals, and alluvial soil. Gold is 
found in the channels of the rivers, and no country is so rich 
\J in diamonds. 

The fertile soil of the Silvas has travelled from afar. 
Washed down from the Andes, it has been gradually de- 
posited and manured by the decay of a thousand forests. 
Granite again appears in more than its usual ruggedness in 
the table-land and mountains of the Parima system. The 
sandstone of the Andes is found there also in a chain 7300 
feet high ; and on the plains of Esmeralda it caps the granite 
of the solitary prism-shaped Duido, the culminating moun- 
tain of the Parima system. Limestone appears in the Brigan- 
tine or Cocallar, the most southern of the three ranges of the 
coast-chain of Venezuela ; the other two are of granite, 
metamorphic rocks, and crystalline schists, torn by earth- 
quakes and worn by the sea, which has deeply indented that 
coast. The chain of islands in the Spanish main is merely 
the wreck of a more northern ridge, broken up into detached 
masses by these irresistible powers. 



CHAPTER X. 

CENTRAL AMERICA — jWEST INDIAN ISLANDS GEOLOGICAL 

NOTICE. 

Taking the natural divisions of the continent alone into con- 
sideration, Central America may be regarded as lying be- 
tween the 7th and 20th parallels of north latitude, and con- 
sequently in a tropical climate. The narrow tortuous strip 
of land which unites the continents of North and South 
America stretches from S.E. to N. W. about 1000 miles, vary- 
ing in breadth from 30 miles to 300 or 400. 

As a regular chain, the Andes terminate suddenly at the 
plain of Panama, but as a mass of high land they continue 



CENTRAL AMERICA. Ill 

through Central America and Mexico, in an irregular mix- 
ture of table-lands and mountains. These table-lands, how- 
ever, differ from those in the Andes of South America, inas- 
much as they are not bounded on each side by Cordilleras 
following the direction of the chain, but are traversed by 
ranges running over them in all directions, or studded by 
mountains. The mass of high land which forms the central 
ridge of the country, and the watershed between the two 
oceans, is very steep on its western side, and runs near the 
coast of the Pacific, where Central America is narrow; but 
to the north, where it becomes wider, the high land recedes 
to a greater distance from the shore than the Andes do in 
any other part between Cape Horn and Mexico. 

The plains of Panama, very little raised above the sea, 
but in some parts studded with hills, follow the direction of 
the isthmus for 280 miles, and end at the Bay of Parita. 
From thence a mass, about 3000 feet high, of forest-covered 
table-lands and complicated mountains, extends through Ve- 
ragua and Porta Rica to the Lake of Nicaragua. The plain 
of Nicaragua, together with its lake, occupies an area of 
30,000 square miles, and forms the second break in the great 
Andean chain. The lake is only 128 feet above the Pacific, 
from which it is separated by a line of active volcanoes. The 
river San Juan de Nicaragua flows from its eastern end into 
the Caribbean Sea, and its northern extremity is connected 
with the smaller lake of Managua by the river Panalaya. 
By this water-line it has been projected to unite the two seas. 
The high land begins again, after an interval of 170 miles, 
with the Mosquito country and Honduras, which mostly con- 
sist of table-lands, high mountains, and some volcanoes. 

The broad elevated belt of Guatemala lies between the 
Isthmus of Chiquimala and that of Tehuantepec. It spreads 
out to the east and forms the high but narrow table-land on 
the peninsula of Yucatan, which terminates at Cape Catoch, 
and which is bounded by high mountains and terraces along 
the Gulf of Honduras. The table-land of Guatemala con- 
sists of undulating verdant plains of great extent, of the ab- 
solute height of 5000 feet, frao-rant with flowers. In the 
southern part of the table-land the cities of Old and New 
Guatemala are situate, 12 miles apart. The portion of the 
plain on which the new city stands is bounded on the west 
by the three volcanoes of Pacaya, del Fuego, and d'Agua; 



112 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

these, rising from 7000 to 10,000 feet above the plain, lie 
close to the new city on the west, and form a scene of won- 
derful boldness and beauty. The Volcano de Agua, at the 
foot of which Old Guatemala stands, is a perfect cone, ver- 
dant to its summit, which occasionally pours forth torrents 
of boiling water and stones. The old city has been twice 
destroyed by it, and is now nearly deserted on account of 
violent earthquakes. The Volcano del Fuego generally emits 
smoke from one of its peaks, and the Volcano de Pacayo is 
only occasionally active. The wide grassy plains are cut by 
deep valleys to the north, where the high land of Guatemala 
ends in parallel ridges of mountains, called the Cerro Pelado, 
which run from east to west along the 94th meridian, filling 
half the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, which is 140 miles broad, 
and unites the table-land of Guatemala with that of Mexico. 

Though there are large savannahs on the high plains of 
Guatemala, there are also magnificent primeval forests, as 
the name of the country implies, Guatemala, in the Mexican 
language, signifying a place covered with trees. The banks 
of the Rio de la Papian, or Usumasinta, which rises in the 
Alpine lake of Lacandon and flows over the table-land to the 
Gulf of Mexico, are beautiful beyond description. 

The coasts of Central America are generally narrow, and 
in some places the mountains and high lands come close to 
the wiater's edge. The sugar-cane is indigenous, and on the 
low lands of the eastern coast all the ordinary produce of the 
West Indian Islands is raised, besides much that is peculiar 
to the country. 

As the climate is cool on the high lands, the vegetation 
of the temperate zone is in perfection... On the low lands, 
as in other countries where heat and moisture are in excess, 
and where nature is for the most part undisturbed, vegeta- 
tion is vigorous to rankness; forests of gigantic timber seek 
the free air above an impenetrable undergrowth, and the 
mouths of the rivers are dense masses of jungle with man- 
groves, and reeds 100 feet highi yet delightful savannahs 
vary the scene, and wooded mountains dip into the water. 

Nearly all the coast of the Pacific is skirted by an alluvial 
plain, of small width, and generally very different in charac- 
ter from that on the Atlantic side. In a line along the wes- 
tern side of the table-land and the mountains, there is a con- 
tinued succession of volcanoes, at various distances from the 



WEST I>"DIAX ISLANDS. 113 

shore, and at various heights, on the declivity of the table- 
land. It seems as if a great crack or fissure had been pro- 
duced in the earth's surface, along the junction of the moun- 
tains and the shore, through which the internal fire had found 
a vent. There are more than 20 active volcanoes in succes- 
sion, between the lOth and 20th parallels of north latitude, 
some higher than the mountains of the central ridge, and 
several subject to violent eruptions. 

The Colombian Archipelago, or West Indian Islands, 
which may be regarded as the wreck of a submerged part of 
the continent of South and Central America, consists of three 
distinct groups, namely, the Lesser Antilles, or Caribbean 
Islands, the Greater Antilles, and the Bahama or Lucay 
Islands. Some of the Lesser Antilles are flat, but their general 
character is bold, with a single mountain or group of moun- 
tains in the centre, which slopes to the sea all around, more 
precipitously on the eastern side, which is exposed to the 
force of the Atlantic current, Trinidad is the most southerly 
of a line of magnificent islands, which form a semicircle, in- 
closing the Caribbean Sea, with its convexity facing the east. 
The row is single to the island of Guadaloup, where it splits 
into two chains, known as the Windward and Leeward 
Islands. Trinidati, Tobago, St. Lucia, and Dominica, are par- 
ticularly mountainous, and the mountains are cut by deep 
narrow rapines, or gullies, covered by ancient forests. The 
volcanic islands, which are mostly in the single part of the 
chain, have conical mountains bristled with rocks of a still 
more rugged form; but almost all the islands of the Lesser 
Antilles have a large portion of excellent vegetable soil in a 
high state of cultivation. Most of them are surrounded by 
coral reefs, which render navigation dangerous, and there is 
little intercourse between these islands, and still less with 
the Greater Antilles, on account of the prevailing winds and 
currents, which make it difficult to return. The Lesser An- 
tilles terminate with the group of the Virgin Islands, which 
are small and tlat, some only a few feet above the sea, and 
most of them are mere coral rocks. 

The four islands which form the group of the Greater 
Antilles, are the largest and finest in the archipelago. 
Porto Rico, Haiti, and Jamaica, separated from the Virgin 
Islands by a narrow channel, lie in a line parallel to the 
coast-chain of Venezuela, from east to west ; while Cuba, 
10* 



114 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

by a serpentine bend, separates the Caribbean Sea, or Sea 
of the Antilles, from the Gulf of Mexico. Porto- Rico is 
140 miles long and 36 broad, with wooded mountains passing 
through its centre nearly from east to west, which furnish 
abundance of water. There are extensive savannahs in the 
interior, and very rich soil on the northern coast, but the 
climate is unhealthy. 

Haiti, 450 miles long and 110 broad, has a group of 
mountains in its centre, the highest of which is 9000 feet 
above the sea. Chains diverge from this nucleus to the 
remotest parts of the island, so that there is a great propor- 
tion of high land. The mountains are susceptible of culti- 
vation nearly to the summits, and they are clothed with 
undisturbed tropical forests. The extensive plains are well 
watered^ and the soil though not deep is productive. 

Jamaica, the most valuable of the British possessions in 
the West Indies, has an area of 4256 square miles, of which 
110,000 acres are cultivated chiefly as sugar-plantations. 
The principal chain of the Blue Mountains lies in the centre 
of the island, from east to west, 5000 or 6000 feet above 'the 
sea, with so sharp a crest that in some places it is only four 
yards across. The offsets from it cover all the eastern part 
of the island ; some of them are 7000 feet high. The more 
elevated ridges are flanked by lower ranges, descending to 
verdant savannahs. The escarpments are wild, the de- 
clivities steep, and mingled with stately forests. The val- 
leys are very narrow, and not more than a twentieth part of 
the island is level ground. There are many small rivers, 
and the coast-line is 500 miles long, with at least 30 good 
harbours. The mean summer heat is 80° of Fahrenheit, 
and that of winter 75''. The plains are often unhealthy, but 
the air on the mountains is salubrious ; fever has never pre- 
vailed at the elevation of 2500 feet. 

Cuba, the largest island in the Colombian Archipelago, 
has an area of 42,212 square miles, and 200 miles of coast, 
but so beset with coral reefs, sand-banks and rocks, that 
only a third of it is accessible, its mountains, which attain 
the height of 8000 feet, occupy the centre, and fill the eas- 
tern part of the island, in a great longitudinal line. No 
island in these seas is more important with regard to situa- 
tion and natural productions ;• and although much of the 
low ground is swampy and unhealthy, there are vast savan- 
nahs, and about a seventh part of the island is cultivated. 



GEOLOGICAL NOTICE. 115 

The Bahama Islands are the least valuable and least 
interesting part of the Archipelago. The group consists of 
about 500 islands, many of them mere rocks, lying east from 
Cuba and the coast of Florida. Twelve are rather large, 
and cultivated ; and though arid, they produce Campeche 
wood and mahogany. The most intricate labyrinth of 
shoals and reefs, chiefly of corals, madrepores, and sand, 
encompass these islands; some of them, rise to the surface, 
and are adorned with groves of palm-trees. The Great 
Bahama Island is the first part of the New World on which 
Columbus landed : the next was Haiti, where his ashes 
rest. 

The geology of Central America is little known ; never- 
theless it appears, from the confused mixture of table-lands 
and mountain-chains in all directions, that the subterraneous 
forces must have acted more partially and irregularly than 
either in South or North America. Granite, gneiss, and 
mica-slate form the substrata of the country ; but the abun- 
dance of igneous rocks bears witness to strong volcanic 
action, both in ancient and in modern times, which still 
maintains its activity in the volcanic groups of Guatemala 
and Mexico. 

From the identity of the fossil remains of extinct quad- 
rupeds, there is every reason to believe that the West 
Indian Archipelago was once part of South America, 'and 
that the rugged and tortuous isthmus of Central America, and 
the serpentine chain of islands winding from Cumana to the 
peninsula of Florida, are but the shattered remains of an 
unbroken continent. The powerful volcanic action in Cen- 
tral America and Mexico, the volcanic nature of many of 
the West Indian Islands, and the still-existing fire in St. 
Vincent's, together with the tremendous earthquakes to 
which the whole region is subject, render it more than pro- 
bable that the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico are 
one great area of subsidence, which possibly has been in- 
creased by the erosion of the Gulf-stream and ground-swell 
— a temporary current of great impetuosity, common among 
the West Indian Islands from October to May. 

The subsidence of this extensive area must have been 
very great, since the water is of profound depth between 
the islands, and it must have taken place after the destruction 
of the great quadrupeds, and consequently at a very recent 



116 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

geological period. The elevation of the table-land of Mexico 
may have been a contemporaneous event. The action in 
the Colombian Archipelago is now, however, in a contrary 
direction, as the bed of the ocean is rising there. The line 
of volcanic islands begins with St. Vincent's, and ends with 
Guadaloup ; the island of St. Eustasius in the Leeward range 
is also volcanic. The Windward and Bahama Islands are 
of calcareous and coral rocks. The Greater Antilles are 
both crystalline and calcareous in their principal mountain- 
chains, which are all parallel to the great chain of Vene- 
zuela, with the exception of Cuba, where the mountains 
diverge from a central nucleus to its extremities : there is a 
region of serpentine, rich in minerals, in one part of the 
island, with an extensive formation of columnar white 
marble adjacent to it. 



CHAPTER XI. 

NORTH AMERICA TABLE-LAND AND MOUNTAINS OF MEXICO 

THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS THE MARITIME CHAIN AND 

MOUNTAINS OF RUSSIAN AMERICA. 

According to the natural division of the continent, North 
America begins about the 20th degree of north latitude, and 
terminates in the Arctic Ocean. It is longer than South 
America, but the irregularity of its outline renders it impos- 
sible to estimate its area. Its greatest length is about 3100 
miles, and its breadth, at the widest part, is 3500 miles. 

The general structure of North America is still more 
simple than that of the southern part of the continent. The 
table-land of Mexico and the Rocky Mountains, which are 
the continuation of the high land of the Andes, run along 
the western side, but at a greater distance from the Pacific ; 
and the immense plains to the east are divided longitudinally 
by the Alleghany Mountains, which stretch from the Carolinas 
to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, parallel to the Atlantic, and at 
no great distance from it. Although the general direction 
of the two chains is from south to north, yet, as they maintain 
a degree of parallelism to the two coasts, they diverge 



NORTH AMERICA. 117 

towards the north, one inclining towards the north-west, and 
the other towards the north-east. The long narrow plain 
between the Atlantic and the Alleghanies is divided, 
throughout its length, by a line of cliifs not more than 200 
or 300 feet above the Atlantic plain — the outcropping edge 
of the Second Terrace, or Atlantic Slope, whose rolling sur- 
face goes west to the foot of the mountains. 

An enormous table-land occupies the greater part of 
Mexico, or Anahuac. It begins at the Isthmus of Tehuan- 
tepec, and extends north-west to the 42d parallel of north 
latitude, a distance of 1600 miles, which is nearly equal 
to the distance from the north extremity of Scotland to Gib- 
raltar. It is narrow towards the south, but expands towards 
the north-west till about the latitude of the city of Mexico, 
where it attains its greatest breadth of 360 miles, and there 
also it is highest. The most easterly part in that parallel is 
7500 feet above the sea, from whence it rises towards the 
west to the height of 9000 feet at the city of Mexico, and 
then gradually diminishes to 4000 feet towards the Pacific. 

Its height in California is not known, but it still bears the 
character of a table-land, and maintains an elevation of 
6000 feet along the east side of the Sierra Madre, even to 
the 32d degree of north latitude, where it sinks to a lower 
level before joining the Rocky Mountains. The descent 
from this plateau to the low lands is very steep on all sides ; 
on the east, especially, it is so precipitous that, from a dis- 
tance, it is like a range of high mountains. There are only 
two carriage-roads to it from the Mexican Gulf, by passes 
500 miles asunder: one at Xalapa, near Vera Cruz; the 
other at Santilla, west of Monterey. The descent to the 
shores of the Pacific is almost equally rapid, and that to the 
south no less so, where, for 300 miles between the plains of 
Tehuantepec and the Rio Yapez, it presses on the shores of 
the Pacific, and terminates in high mountains, leaving only 
a narrow margin of hilly maritime coast. Where the surface 
of the table-land is not traversed by mountains it is as level 
as the ocean. There is a carriage-road over it for 1500 
miles, without hills, from the city of Mexico to Sante Fe. 

The southern part of the plateau is divided into four parts, 
or distinct plains, surrounded by hills from 500 to 1000 feet 
high. In one of these, the plain of Tolesco, on a small 
group of islands near the eastern bank of the Lake Tetzcuco, 



118 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

and surrounded by a wall of porphyritic mountains, stands 
the city of Mexico, once the capital of the empire of Mon- 
tezuma, which must have far surpassed the modern city in 
extent and splendour, as many remains of its ancient glory 
testify. It is 9000 feet above the sea, which is the height 
of Mount ,St. Bernard. 

One of the singular crevices through which the internal 
fire finds a vent stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to the 
Pacific, directly across the table-land, in a line about 16 
miles south of the city of Mexico. A very remarkable row of 
active volcanoes occurs along this parallel. Turtla, the most 
eastern of them, is in the 95th degree west longitude, near 
the Mexican Gulf, in a low range of wooded hills. More 
to the west the snow-shrouded cone of Orizabo is 17,000 
feet high ; and its ever-fiery crater, seen like a star in the 
darkness of the 'night, has obtained it the name of Citlalte- 
petel, the " Mountain of the Star." Popocatepetl, the 
loftiest mountain in Mexico, 17,884 feet above the sea, lies 
still farther west, and is in a state of constant eruption. A 
chain of smaller volcanoes unites the three. On the western 
slope of the table-land, 36 leagues from the Pacific, stands 
the volcanic cone of Jorullo, on a plain 2890 feet above the 
sea. It suddenly appeared and rose 1683 feet above the 
plain on the night of the 29th of September, 1759. The 
great cone of Colima, the last of this volcanic series, stands 
insulated in the plain of that name, between the western 
declivity of the table-land and the Pacific. 

A high range of mountains extends along the eastern 
margin of the table-land to Real de Catorce, and the surface 
of the high plain is divided into two parts by the Sierra 
Madre, which begins at 21 degrees north latitude ; and, 
after going north about 60 miles, its continuity is broken 
into the insulated ridges of the Sierra Altamina, and the 
group containing the mines of Zacatecas ; it soon after 
resumes its character of a regular chain, and, with a breadth 
of 100 miles, proceeds in parallei ridges and longitudinal 
valleys to New Mexico, where it skirts both banks of the 
Rio Bravo del Norte, and joins the Sierra Verde, the most 
southern part of the Rocky Mountains, in 40 degrees north 
latitude. 

To the south some points of the Sierra Madre are said to 
be 10,000 feet high, and 4000 above their base ; and be- 



THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 119 

tween the parallels of 36 and 42 degrees, where the chain 
is the watershed between the Rio Colorado and the Rio 
Bravo del Norte, they are still higher, and perpetually 
covered with snow. The mountains on the left bank of the 
last-mentioned river are the eastern ridges of the Sierra 
Madre, and contain the sources of the innumerable affluents 
of the Missouri and other rivers that flow into the Missis- 
sippi and Mexican Gulf 

Deep cavities, called Barancas, are a characteristic feature 
of the table-lands of Mexico. They are long narrow rents 
two or three miles in breadth, and many more in length, 
often descending 1000 feet below the surface of the plain, 
with a brook or the tributary of some river flowing through 
them. Their sides are precipitous and rugged, with over- 
hanging rocks covered wnth large trees. The intense heat 
adds to the contrast between these hollows and the bare 
plains, where the air is more than cool. 

Vegetation varies with the elevation : consequently the 
splendour which adorns the low lands vanishes on the high 
plains, which, though producing much grain and pasture, 
are often saline, sterile, and treeless, except in some places, 
where oaks grow to an enormous size free of underwood. 

The Rocky Mountains run 1500 miles, in two parallel 
chains, from the Sierra Verde to the mouth of the Mackenzie 
River, in the Arctic Ocean, sometimes united by a transverse 
ridge. In some places the eastern range rises to the snow- 
line, and even far above it, as in Mounts Hooper and 
Brown, 15,590 and 16,000 feet above the sea ; but the 
general elevation is only above the line of trees. The west- 
ern range is not so high till north of the 55th parallel, where 
both ranges are of the same height, and frequently higher 
than the snow-line. They are generally barren, though the 
transverse valleys have fertile spots with grass, and some- 
times trees. The long valley between the two rows of the 
Rocky Mountains, which is 100 miles wide, must have con- 
siderable elevation in the south, since the tributaries of the 
Colombia River descend from it in a series of rapids and 
cataracts for nearly 100 miles ; and it is probably still higher 
towards the sources of the Peace River, where the moun- 
tains, only 1500 feet above it, are perpetually covered with 
snow. The Sierra Verde is 670 miles from the Pacific ; 
but, as the coast trends due north to the Sound of Juan de 



120 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Fuca, tlie western range of the Rocky Mountains maintains 
a distance of 38() miles from the ocean, from that point to 
the latitude of Behring's Bay in 60 degrees north latitude. 

Offsets from the Sierra Mad re, and the volcanic group of 
Castres Virgines, fill the peninsula of California, from 
whence, to the Sound of Juan de Fuca, the Pacific is bor- 
dered by snow-clad mountains. Prairies extend between 
this coast-chain and the Rocky Mountains from California to 
north of the Oregon River. The Oregon coast for 200 miles 
is a mass of undisturbed forest-thickets and marshes, and 
north from it, with few exceptions, is a mountainous region 
of bold aspect, often reaching above the snow-line. The 
maritime chain of Russian America, of a still more Alpine 
character, runs due north to 60 degrees of north latitude, 
where Mount Elias rises to 17,000 feet. The branch which 
runs westward to Bristol Bay has many active volcanoes, 
and so has that which fills the promontory of Alaska. 

The archipelagos and islands along the coast, from Cali- 
fornia to the promontory of Alaska, have the same bold 
character as the mainland, and may be regarded as the tops 
of a submarine chain of table-lands and mountains, which 
constitute the most westerly ridge of the maritime chains. 
Prince of Wales's Archipelago contains seven active vol- 
canoes. 

The mountains on the coasts of the Pacific, and the islands, 
are, in many places, covered with colossal forests, but wade 
tracts in the south are sandy deserts. 



CHAPTER XII. 

NORTH AMERICA [conthlUed). THE GREAT CENTRAL PLAINS OR 

VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS 

THE ATLANTIC SLOPE THE ATCANTIC PLAIN — GEOLOGICAL 

NOTICE. 

The great central plain of North America, lying between 
the Rocky and Alleghany Mountains, and reaching from the 
Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean, includes the valleys of 
the Mississippi, St. Lawrence, Nelson, Churchill, and most 



VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 121 

of those of the Missouri, Mackenzie's, and Coppermine 
rivers. It has an area of 3,240,0u0 square miles, which is 
240,000 square miles more than the central plain of South 
America, and about half the size of the great plain of the 
Old Continent, which is less fertile ; for, although the whole 
of America is not more than half the size of the Old Conti- 
nent, it contains at least as much productive soil. 

This plain, 5000 miles long, becomes wider towards the 
north, and has-no elevations, except a low table-land which 
crosses it at the line of the Canadian lakes and the sources 
of the Mississippi, and is nowhere above 1500 feet high, and 
rarely more than 700. The character of the plain is that of 
perfect unitbrmity, rising by a gentle regular ascent from 
the Gulf of Mexico to the sources of the Mississippi, whith 
river is the great feature of the North American low lands. 
The ground rises in the same equable manner from the right 
bank of the- Mississippi to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, 
but its ascent from the left bank to the Alleghanies is broken 
into hill and dale, containing the most fertile territory in the 
United States. Under so wide a range of latitude the plain 
embraces a great variety of soil, climate, and productions ; 
but, being almost in a state of nature, it is characterized in its 
middle and southern parts by interminable grassy savannahs, 
or prairies, and enormous forests ; and in the far north by 
deserts which rival those of Siberia in dreariness. 

In the south a sandy desert, 400 or 500 miles wide, 
stretches along the base of the Rocky Mountains to the 4 1st 
degree N. lat. The dry plains of Texas and the upper re- 
gion of the Arkansas have all the characteristics of Asiatic 
table-lands ; more to the north the bare, treeless steppes on 
the high grounds of the far west are burnt up in summer, and 
frozen in winter by biting blasts from the Rocky Mountains; 
but the soil improves towards the Mississippi. At its mouth, 
indeed, there are marshes which cover 35,000 square miles, 
bearing a rank vegetation, and its delta is a labyrinth of 
streams and lakes, with dense brushwood. There are also 
large tracts of forest and saline ground, but all the cultiva- 
tion on the right bank of the river is along the Gulf of Mexico 
and in the adjacent provinces, and is entirely tropical, con- 
sisting of sugar-cane, cotton, and indigo. The prairies, so 
characteristic of North America, then begin. 

To the left of the Mississippi these savannahs are some- 
11 



122 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

times rolling, but oftener level and interminable as the ocean, 
covered with long rank grass of tender green, blended with 
flowers chiefly of the liliaceous kind, which fill the air with 
their fragrance. In the southern districts they are sometimes 
interspersed with groups of magnolia, tulip and cotton-trees, 
and in the north, oaks and black walnut. These are rare 
occurrences, as the prairies may be traversed for many days 
without finding a shrub, except on the banks of the streams, 
which are beautifully fringed with myrtle, azalea, kalmea, 
andromeda, and rhododendron. On the wide plains the 
only objects to be seen are countless herds of wild horses, 
buffaloes and deer. The country assumes a more severe as- 
pect in higher latitudes. It is still capable of producing rye 
and barley in the territories of the Assinniboines, and round 
Lake Winnepeg there are great forests; a low vegetation, 
with grass, follows, and towards the Icy Ocean the land is 
barren and covered with numerous lakes. 

East of the Mississippi there is a magnificent undulating 
country about 300 miles broad, extending 1000 miles from 
south to north between that great river and the Alleghany 
Mountains, mostly covered with trees. When America was 
discovered, one uninterrupted forest spread over the country 
from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Canadian lakes to the 
Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic Ocean it crossed the 
Alleghany Mountains, descended into the valley of the Mis- 
sissippi on the north, but in the south it crossed the main 
stream of that river altogether, forming an ocean of vegeta- 
tion of more than 1,000,000 square miles, of which the 
greater part still remains. Although forests occupy so much 
of the country, there are immense prairies on the east side 
of the river also. Pine-barrens, stretching far into the inte- 
rior, occupy the whole coast of the Mexican Gulf eastward 
from the Pearl River, through Alabama and a great part of 
Florida. 

These vast monotonous tracts of sand, covered with forests 
of gigantic pine-trees, are as peculiarly a distinctive feature 
of the continent of North America as the prairies, and are 
not confined to this part of the United States; they occur to 
a great extent in North Carolina, Virginia, and elsewhere. 
Tennessee and Kentucky, though much cleared, still pos- 
sess large forests, and the Ohio flows for hundreds of miles 
among magnificent trees, with an undergrowth of azaleas, 



CANADIAN FORESTS. 123 

rhododendrons, and other beautiful shrubs, matted together 
by creeping plants. There the American forests appear in 
all their glory, the gigantic deciduous cy})ress, and the tall 
tulip-tree, overtopping the forest by half its height, a variety 
of noble oaks, black walnuts, American plane, hiccory, sugar- 
maple, and the lyriodendron, the most splendid of the mag- 
nolia tribe, the pride of the forest. 

The Illinois waters a country of prairies ever fresh and 
green, and five new states are rising round the great lakes, 
whose territory of 280,000 square miles contains 180,000,000 
acres of land, of excellent quality. These states, still mostly 
covered with wood, lie between the lakes and the Ohio, and 
they reach from the United States to the Upper Mississippi 
— a country twice as large as France, and six times the size 
of England. 

The quantity of water, in the north-eastern part of the cen- 
tral plain, greatly preponderates over that of the land ; the 
five principal lakes, Huron, Superior, Michigan, Erie, and 
Ontario, cover an area equal to Great Britain, without reck- 
oning small lakes and rivers innumerable. 

The Canadas contain millions of acres of good soil, covered 
with immense forests. Upper Canada is the most fertile, and 
in many respects is one of the most valuable of the British 
colonies in the west: every European grain, and every plant 
that requires a hot summer, and can endure a cold winter, 
thrives there. The forests consist chiefly of black and white 
spruce, the Weymouth and other pines — trees which do not 
admit of undergrowth: they grow to great height, like bare 
spars, with a tufted crown, casting a deep gloom below. 
The fall of large trees from age is a common occurrence, and 
not without danger, as it often causes the destruction of those 
adjacent, and an ice-storm is awful. 

After a heavy fall of snow, succeeded by rain and a par- 
tial thaw, a strong frost coats the trees and all their branches 
with transparent ice, often an inch thick : the noblest trees 
bend under the load, icicles hang from every bough, which 
come down in showers with the least breath of wind. The 
hemlock-spruce especially, with its long drooping branches, 
is then like a solid mass. If the wind freshens, the smaller 
trees become like corn beaten down by the tempest, while 
the large ones swing heavily in the breeze. The forest at 
last gives way under its load : tree comes down after tree 



124 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

with sudden and terrific violence, crushing all before them, 
till the whole is one wide uproar, heard from afar like suc- 
cessive discharges of artillery. Nothing, however, can be 
imagined more brilliant and beautiful than the effect of sun- 
shine in a calm day on the frozen boughs, where every par- 
ticle of the icy crystals sparkles, and nature seems decked in 
diamonds.* 

Although the subsoil is perpetually frozen at the depth of 
a few feet below the surface, beyond the 56th degree of north 
latitude, yet trees growin some places up to the 64th parallel. 
Farther north, the gloomy and majestic forests cease, and are 
succeeded by a bleak, barren waste, which becomes progres- 
sively more dreary as it approaches the Arctic Ocean. Four- 
fifths of it are like the wilds of Siberia in surface and climate, 
covered many months in the year with deep snow. During 
the summer it is the resort of herds of rein-deer and buffaloes, 
which come from the south to browse on the tender shore 
grass which then springs up along the streams and lakes. 

The Alleghany or Appalachian chain, which constitutes 
the second or subordinate system of North American moun- 
tains, separates the great central plain from that which lies 
along the Atlantic Ocean. Its base is a strip of table-land 
from 1000 to 3000 feet high, lying between the sources of 
the rivers Alabama and Yazan, in the southern states of the 
Union, and New Brunswnck, at the mouth of the river St. 
Lawrence. This high land is traversed throughout 1000 
miles, between Alabama and Vermont, by from three to five 
parallel ridges of low mountains rarely more than 3000 or 
4000 feet high, and separated by fertile longitudinal valleys, 
which occupy more than two-thirds of its breadth of 100 
miles. In Virginia and Pennsylvania, the only part of the 
chain to which the name of the Alleghany Mountains pro- 
perly belongs, it is 150 miles broad; and the whole is com- 
puted to have an area of 2,000,000 square miles. The pa- 
rallelism of the ridges, and the uniform level of their summits, 
are the characteristics of this chain, which is lower and less 
wild than the Rocky Mountains. The uniformity of outline 
in the southern and middle parts of the chain is ver)' remark- 
able, and results from their peculiar structure.! These moun- 
tains have no central axis, but consist of a series of convex 

* Mr. Taylor. f Mr. Lyell's America. 



ALLEGHANY MOUNTAINS. 125 

and concave flexures, forming alternate hills and longitudinal 
valleys, running nearly parallel throughout their length, and 
cut transversely by the rivers that flow to the Atlantic on one 
hand, and to the Mississippi on the other. The water-shed 
nearly follows the windings of the coast, from the point of 
Florida to the north-western extremity of the State of Maine. 

The picturesque and peaceful scenery of the Appalachian 
Mountains is well known ; they are generally clothed with 
a luxuriant and varied vegetation, and their western slope is 
considered one of the finest countries in the United States. 
To the south they maintain a distance of 200 miles from the 
Atlantic, but approach close to the coast in the south-eastern 
part of the state of New York, from whence their general 
course is northerly to the river St. Lawrence. They fill the 
Canadas, Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia with 
branches as high as the mean elevation of the principal 
chain, and extend even to the dreary regions of Baffin's 
Bay. Not only the deep forests, but vegetation in general, 
diminish as the latitude increases, till on the Arctic shores 
the soil becomes incapable of culture, and the majestic forest 
is superseded by the Arctic birch which creeps on the 
ground. The islands along the north-eastern coasts have 
more than the mildness of the main-land. Though little 
favoured by nature, many of them produce flax and timber ; 
and Newfoundland, as large as England and Wales, main- 
tains a population of 70,000 souls by its fisheries ; it is 
nearer to Britain than any part of America — the distance 
from the port of St. John to the harbour of Valentia in Ireland 
is only 1655 nautical miles. 

The long and comparatively narrow plain which lies 
between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic, ex- 
tends from the Gulf of Mexico to the eastern coast of Massa- 
chusetts. At its southern extremity it joins the plain of the 
Mississippi, and gradually becomes narrower in its northern 
course to New England, where it merely includes the coast 
islands. It is divided throughout its length by a line of 
cliffs from 200 to 300 feet high, which begins in Alabama, 
and ends in the coast of Massachusetts. This escarpment is 
the eastern edge of the terrace known as the Atlantic Slope, 
which rises above the Maritime or Atlantic Plain, and undu- 
lates westward to the foot of the Blue Mountains, the most 
eastern ridge of the Appalachian Chain. It is narrow at its 
11* 



126 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

extremities in Alabama and New York, but in Virginia and 
the Carolinas it is 200 miles wide. The surface of the slope 
is of great uniformity ; ridges of hills and long valleys run 
along it parallel to the mountains, close to which it is 600 
feet high. It is rich in soil and cultivation, and has an 
imaiense water-power in the streams and rivers flowing from 
the mountains across it, which are precipitated over its rocky 
edge to the plains on the west. More than twenty-three 
rivers of considerable size fall in cascades down this ledge 
between New York and the Mississippi, affording scenes of 
great beauty. 

Both land and water assume a new aspect on the Atlantic 
Plain. The rivers, after dashing over the rocky barrier, run 
in tranquil streams to the ocean, and the plain itself is a 
monotonous level, not more than a hundred feet above the 
surface of the sea. Along the coast it is scooped into valleys 
and ravines, with innumerable creeks. 

The greater part of the magnificent countries east af the 
Alleghanies is in a high state of cultivation and commercial 
prosperity, with aatural advantages not surpassed in any 
country. Nature, however, still maintains her sway in some 
parts, especially where pine-barrens and swamps prevail. 
The territory of the United States occupies 7,000,000 or 
8,000,000 square miles, the greater part of it capable of pro- 
ducing every thing that is useful to man, but not more than 
the twenty-sixth part of it has been cleared ; the climate is 
healthy, the soil fertile, abounding in mineral treasures, and 
it possesses every advantage from navigable rivers and 
excellent harbours. The outposts of civilization have al- 
ready advanced half way to the Pacific, and the tide of 
white men is continually and irresistibly pressing onwards 
to the ultimate extinction of the original proprietors of the 
soil— a melancholy, but not a solitary instance of the rapid 
extinction of a whole race. 

Crystalline and silurian rocks, rich in precious and other 
metals, form the substratum of ]\Iexico, for the most part 
deeply covered with plutonic and volcanic formations and 
secondary limestone ; yet granite comes to the surface on 
the coast of Acapulca, and occasionally on the plains and 
mountains of the table-land. The Rocky Mountains are 
mostly silurian, except the eastern ridge which is of strati- 
fied crystalline rocks, amygdaloid and ancient volcanic pro- 



GEOLOGICAL NOTICE. 



127 



d actions. The coast-chain has the same character, with 
immense tracts of volcanic rocks, both ancient and modern, 
especially obsidian, which is nowhere developed on a greater 
scale, except in Mexico and the Andes. 

In North America, as in the southern part of the continent, 
volcanic action is entirely confined to the coast and highland 
along the Pacific. The numerous vents in Mexico and 
California are often in great activity, and hot springs abound. 
Though a considerable interval occurs north of these, where 
the fire is dormant, the country is full of igneous produc- 
tions, and it again finds tent in Prince of Wales's Island, 
wJiich has seven active volcanoes. From Mount St. Elias 
westward through the whole southern coast of the peninsula 
of Russian America and the Aleutian Islands, which form a 
semicircle between Cape Alaska, in America, and the penin- 
sula of Kamschatka, volcanic vents occur, and in the latter 
peninsula there are three of great height. 

From the similar nature of the coasts, and the identity of 
the fossil mammalia on each side of Behring's Strait, it is 
more than probable that the two continents were united even 
since the sea was inhabited by the existing species of shell- 
fish. Some of the gigantic quadrupeds of the Old Continent 
are supposed to have crossed either over the land or over the 
ice to America, and to have wandered southward through 
the longitudinal valleys of the Rocky Mountains, Mexico, 
and Central America, and to have spread over the vast 
plains of both continents, even to their utmost extremity. 
An extinct species of horse, the mastodon, a species of ele- 
phant, three gigantic edentata, and a hollow-horned rumi- 
nating animal, roamed over the pampas of the southern conti- 
nent, and the prairies of the northern ; certainly since the sea 
was peopled by its present inhabitants, probably even since the 
existence of the Indians. The skeletons of these creatures 
are found in great numbers in the saline marshes on the 
prairies called the Licks, which are still the resort of the 
existing races. 

There were, however, various animals peculiar to America, 
as well as to each part of that continent, at least as far as 
yet known. South America still retains in many cases the 
type of its ancient inhabitants, though on a very reduced 
scale. But on the Patagonian plains and on the pampas, 
skeletons of creatures of gigantic size and anomalous forms 



1-2S PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

have been found; one like an ant-eater of great magnitude, 
covered with a prodigious coat of mail similar to that of the 
armadillo ; others like gigantic rats or mice, perhaps the 
largest animals yet discovered, — all of which had lived on 
vegetables, and had existed at the same time with those 
already mentioned. These animals were not destroyed by 
the agency of man, since creatures not larger than a rat 
vanished from Brazil within the same period. 

The geological outline of the United States, the Canadas, 
and all the country to the Polar Ocean, though highly 
interesting in itself, becomes infinitely more so when viewed 
in connection with that of northern and middle Europe. A 
remarkable analogy exists in the structure of the land on 
each side of the north Atlantic basin. Gneiss, mica-schist, 
and occasional granite, prevail over wide areas in the Alle- 
ghanies, on the Atlantic slope, and still more in the northern 
latitudes of the American continent ; and they range also 
through the greater part of Scandinavia, Finland, and Lap- 
land. In the latter countries, and in the more northern 
parts of America, Mr. Lyell has observed that the fossili- 
ferous rocks belong either to the most ancient or to the 
newest formation, to the Silurian strata, or to such as contain 
shells of recent species only, no intermediate formation ap- 
pearing through immense regions. Silurian strata extend 
over 2000 miles in the middle and high latitudes of North 
America; they occupy a tract nearly as great between the 
most westerly headlands of Norway and those that separate 
the White Sea from the Polar Ocean ; and Sir Roderick 
Murchison has traced them through central and eastern 
Europe, and the Ural Mountains, even to Siberia. Through- 
out these vast regions, both in America and Europe, the 
Silurian strata are followed in ascending order by the De- 
vonian and carboniferous formations, which are developed 
on a stupendous scale in the United States, chiefly in the 
Alleghany Mountains and on the Atlantic slope. The 
Devonian and carboniferous strata together are a mile and a 
half thick in New York, and three times as much in Penn- 
sylvania, where one single coal-field occupies 63,000 square 
miles between the northern limits of that State and Alabama. 
There are many others of great magnitude, both in the 
States and to the north of them, so that the most valuable 
of all minerals is here inexhaustible, which is not the least 



GREENLAND. 129 

of the many advantages enjoyed by that flourishing country. 
The coal formation is also developed in New Brunswick, 
and traces of it are found on the shores and in the islands 
of the Polar Ocean, on the east coast of Greenland, and even 
in Spitzbergen. 

Vast carboniferous basins exist in Belgium above the Silu- 
rian strata ; and a great portion of Britain is perfectly simi- 
lar in structure to North America. The Silurian rocks in 
many instances are the same ; and the coal-fields of New 
England are precisely similar to those in Wales, 3000 miles 
off. It would be difficult to estimate the quantity of coal in 
Britain and Ireland, but there is probably enough to last for 
some thousand years. If science continues to advance as it 
has lately done, a substitute will in. all probability be dis- 
covered before the coal is exhausted. 

In all the more northern countries that have been men- 
tioned, so very distant from one another, the general range 
of the rocks is from north-east to south-west ; and in north- 
ern Europe, the British isles, and North America, great lakes 
are formed along thejunction of the strata, the whole analogy 
alFording a proof:of the wide diffusion of the same geological 
conditions in the northern regions at a very remote period. 
At a later time those erratic blocks, which are now scattered 
over the higher latitudes of both continents, were most likely 
brought from the north by drift ice or currents, while the land 
was still covered by the deep. Volcanic agency has not 
been wanting to complete the analogy. The Silurian and 
overlying strata have been pierced in many places by trap- 
pean rocks in both continents, and they appear also in the 
islands of the North Atlantic and Polar Seas. Even now 
the volcanic fires are in great activity in the very centre of 
that basin in Iceland, and in the very distant and less known 
island of Jan Mayen's Land, 



^ CHAPTER XIII. 

GREENLAND SPITZBERGEN ICELAND JAN MAYEn's LAND 

ANTARCTIC LANDS VICTORIA CONTINENT. 

Greenland, the most extensive of the Arctic lands, begins 
with the lofty promontory of Cape Farewell, the southern 



130 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

extremity of a group of rocky islands, which are separated 
by a channel five miles wide from a table-land of appalling 
aspect, narrow to the south, but increasing in breadth 
northward to a distance of which only 1300 miles are 
known. This table-land is bounded by mountains rising 
from the deep in mural precipices, which terminate in needles 
and pyramids, or in parallel terraces of alternate snow and 
bare rock, occasionally leaving a narrow shore. The coat- 
ing of ice is so continuous and thick that the surface of the 
table-land may be regarded as one enormous glacier, which 
overlaps the rocky edges and dips between the mountain 
peaks into the sea. 

The coasts are beset with rocky islands, and cloven by 
fiords which, in some instances, wind like rivers for 100 
miles into the interior. These deep inlets of the sea, now 
sparkling in sunshine, now shaded in gloom, are hemmed 
in by walls of rock often 2000 feet high, whose summits are 
hid in the clouds. They generally terminate in glaciers, 
which are sometimes forced on by the pressure of the upper 
ice plains till they fill the fiord and even project far into the 
sea like bold headlands, when, undermined by the surge, 
huge masses of ice fall from them with a crash like thunder, 
making the sea boil. These icebergs, carried by currents, 
are stranded on the Arctic coast, or are driven into lower 
latitudes. The ice is very transparent and compact in the 
Arctic regions : its prevailing tints are blue, green, and 
orange, which, contrasted with the dazzling whiteness of the 
snow and the gloomy hue of the rocks, produce a striking 
effect. 

A great fiord in the 68th parallel of latitude is supposed 
to extend completely across the table-land, dividing the 
country into south and north Greenland, which last extends 
indefinitely towards the pole, but it is altogether inaccessible 
from the frozen sea and the iron-bound shore, so that, ex- 
cepting a very small portion of the coast, it is an unknown 
region. 

In some sheltered spots in south Greenland, especially 
along the borders of the fiords, there are meadows where 
the service-tree bears fruit ; beech and willow trees grow by 
the streams, but not taller than a man ; and still farther 
north the willow and juniper scarcely rise above the surface ; 
yet this country has a flora peculiar to itself. South of the 



SPITZBERGEN ICELAND. 131 

island of Disco, on the west coast, Danish colonies and mis- 
sionaries have made settlements on some of the islands, and 
at the mouths of fiords ; the Esquimaux inhabit the coasts 
even to the extremity of Baffin's Bay. 

The aspect of other Arctic lands is like that of Green- 
land. In the island of Spitzbergen the mountains spring 
sharp and grand from the margin of the sea in dark gloomy 
masses, mixed with pure snow and enormous glaciers, pre- 
senting a sublime spectacle. The sun is not seen for seve- 
ral months in the year, when the intensity of the cold splits 
rocks and makes the sea reek like a boiling caldron. Many 
have perished in the attempt to winter in this island, yet a 
colony of Russian hunters and fishermen lead a miserable 
existence there within 10° of the pole — the most northern 
inhabited spot on the globe. 

Although the direct rays of the sun are powerful in shel- 
tered spots within the Arctic circle, the thermometer does 
not rise above 45° of Fahrenheit. July is the only month 
in which snow does not fall, and in the end of August the 
sea at night is covered with a thin coating of ice, and a 
summer often passes without one day that can be called 
warm. The snow-blink, the aurora, the stars, and the 
moon, which appears ten or twelve days without intermis- 
sion in her northern declination, furnish the greatest light 
the inhabitants enjoy in their long winter. 

Iceland is 200 miles east from Greenland, and lies south 
of the Arctic Circle, which its most northern point touches. 
Though a fifth part larger than Ireland, not more than 4000 
square miles are habitable ; all besides being a chaos of vol- 
canoes and ice.* 

The peculiar feature of Iceland lies in a trachytic region, 
which seems to rest on an ocean of fire. It consists of two 
vast parallel table-lands covered with ice-clad mountains, 
stretching from N.E. to S.W. through the very centre of the 
island, separated by a longitudinal valley nearly 100 miles 
wide, which reaches from sea to sea. These mountains 
assume rounded forms with long level summits, or domes 
with sloping declivities, as in the trachyte mountains of the 
Andes and elsewhere ; but such huge masses of tufa and 
conglomerate project from their sides in perpendicular or 

* Trevclyan'a Travels in Iceland. 



132 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

overhanging precipices, separated by deep ravines, that the 
regularity of their structure can only be perceived from a 
distance ; they conceal under a cold and tranquil coating of 
ice the fiery germs of terrific convulsions, sometimes burst- 
ing into dreadful activity, sometimes quiescent for ages. 
The most extensive of the two parallel ranges of Jokuls or 
Ice Mountains runs along the eastern side of the valley, and 
contains Ordefa, the highest point in Iceland, seen like a 
white cloud from a great distance at sea ; the western high 
land passes through the centre of the island. 

Glaciers cover many thousand square miles in Iceland, 
descending from the mountains and pushing far into the low 
lands. This tendency of the ice to encroach has very mate- 
rially diminished the quantity of habitable ground, and the 
progress of the glaciers is facilitated by the influence of the 
ocean of subterranean fire, which heats the superincumbent 
ground and loosens the ice. 

The longitudinal space between the mountainous table- 
lands is a low valley 100 miles wide, extending from sea 
to sea, where a substratum of trachyte is covered with lava, 
sand, and ashes, studded with low volcanic cones. It is a tre- 
mendous desert, never approached without dread even by 
the natives ; a scene of perpetual conflict between the anta- 
gonist powers of fire and frost, without a drop of water or a 
blade of grass : no living creature is to be seen, not a bird 
nor even an insect. The surface is a confused mass of 
streams of lava rent by crevices ; and rocks piled on rocks, 
with occasional glaciers, complete the scene of desolation. 

As herds of rein-deer are seen browsing on the Iceland 
moss that grows plentifully at its edges, it may be presumed 
that some unknown parts may be less barren. The extremi- 
ties of the valley are more especially the theatres of perpet- 
ual volcanic activity. At the southern end, which opens to 
the sea in a wide plain, there are many volcanoes, of which 
Hekla is most known, from its insulated position, its vicinity 
to the coast, and its tremendous eruptions. The cone is divid- 
ed into three peaks by ere vices which are filled with snow: one 
of the fissures cleaves the mountain from the summit to the 
base ; it is supposed to have been produced by the great 
eruption of 1300. Between the years 1004 and 1766 twenty- 
three violent eruptions have taken place, one of which con- 
tinued six years, spreading devastation over a country once 



ICELAND BOILING SPRINGS. 133 

the abode of a thriving colony, now covered with lava, 
scoriae, and ashes ; and in the year 1846 it was in full acti- 
vity. The eruption of Skaptar, which broke out on the 8th of 
May, 1783, and continued till August, is one of the most 
dreadful recorded. The sun was hid many days by dense 
clouds of vapour, which extended to England and Holland, 
and the quantity of matter th'-own out in this eruption was 
computed at fifty or sixty thousand millions of cubic yards. 
Some rivers were heated to ebullition, others dried up ; the 
condensed vapour fell in snow and torrents of rain ; the 
country was laid waste, famine and disease ensued, and in 
the course of the two succeeding years 1300 people and 
150,000 sheep and horses perished. The scene of horror 
was closed by a dreadful earthquake. Previous to the explo- 
sion an ominous mildness of temperature indicated the ap- 
proach of the volcanic fire towards the surface of the earth : 
similar warnings had been observed before in the eruptions 
of Hekla. 

A semicircle of volcanic mountains, on the eastern side 
of the lake Myvatr, is the focus of the igneous phenomena 
at the northern end of the great central valley. Leirhnukr 
and Krabla, on the N.E. of the lake, have been especially 
formidable. After years of quiescence they suddenly burst 
into violent eruption, and poured such a quantity of lava in- 
to the lake Myvatr, which is 20 miles in circumference, that 
the water boiled many days. There are other volcanoes in this 
district no less formidable. Various caldrons of boiling mi- 
neral pitch, the shattered craters of ancient volcanoes, occur 
at the base of this semicircle of mountains, and also on the 
flanks of Mount Krabla. These caldrons throw up jets of 
the dark matter, enveloped in clouds of steam, at regular in- 
tervals, with a loud explosion. 

The eruptive boiling springs of Iceland are perhaps the 
most extraordinary phenomenon in this singular country. 
All the great aqueous eruptions occur in the trachytic for- 
mation : they are characterized by their high temperature, 
by holding siliceous matter in solution, which they deposit 
in the form of siliceous sinter, and by the discharge of sul- 
phuretted hydrogen gas. Numerous instances of spouting 
springs occur at the extremities of the great central valley, 
especially at its southern end, where more than fifty have 
been counted in the space of a few acres — some constant, 
12 



134 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

others periodical, some merely agitated, or stagnant. The 
Great Geyser and Stokr, six miles north-west from Hekia, 
are the most magnificent ; at regular intervals they project 
large columns of boiling water 100 feet high, enveloped in 
clouds of steam, with tremendous noise. Some springs emit 
gas only, or gas with a small quantity of water. Such 
fountains are not confined to the land, or fields of ice ; they 
occur also in the sea, and many issue from crevices in the 
lava-bed of the lake Myvatr, and rise in jets above the sur- 
face of the water. 

A region of the same character with the mountains of the 
Icelandic desert extends due west from it to the extremity 
of the long narrow promontory of the Sneefield Syssel, ending 
in the snow-clad cone of the Sneefield Jokul, 5000 feet high, 
one of the most conspicuous mountains in Iceland. 

With the exception of the purely volcanic districts de- 
scribed, trap-rocks cover 20,000 square miles of Iceland, in 
beds perfectly parallel, and almost horizontal, which have 
been formed by streams of lava at very ancient epochs, 
spread over the country occasionally 4000 feet deep. 

The dismal coasts are torn in every direction by fiords 
penetrating many miles into the interior, and splitting into 
endless branches. In these fissures the sea is still, dark, 
and deep between walls of rock 1000 feet high. The fiords, 
however, do not here, as in Greenland, terminate in glaciers, 
but are prolonged in narrow valleys through which streams 
and rivers run to the sea. In these valleys the inhabitants 
have their abode, or in meadows which have a transient 
verdure along some of the fiords, where the sea is so deep 
that ships find safe anchorage. 

In the valleys on the northern coast, near as they approach 
to the Arctic circle, the soil is wonderfully good, and there 
is more vegetation than in any other part of Iceland, with 
theexception of the eastern shore, which is the most favoured 
portion of this desolate land. Rivers abounding in fish are 
much more frequent there than elsewhere ; willows and 
juniper adorn the valleys, and birch-trees 20 feet high grow 
in the vale of Lagerflest, the only place which produces 
them large enough for house building, and the verdure is 
fine on the banks of those streams which are heated by vol- 
canic fires. 

The climate of Iceland is much less rigorous than that of 



VICTORIA CONTINENT. 135 

Greenland, and it would be still railder were not the air 
chilled by the immense fields of ice from the Polar Sea which 
beset its shores. 

The inhabitants are supplied with fuel by the Gulf Stream, 
which brings drift wood in great quantity from Mexico, the 
Carolinas, Virginia^ the river St. Lawrence, some even 
from the Pacific Ocean is drifted by currents round by the 
northern shores of Siberia. The mean temperature in the 
south of the island is about 39° of Fahrenheit, that of the 
central districts 36°, and in the north it is rarely above the 
freezing point. The cold is most intense when the sky is 
clear, but that is a rare occurrence, as the wind from the sea 
covers mountain and valley with thick fog. Hurricanes are 
frequent and furious, and, although thunder is seldom heard 
in high latitudes, Iceland is an exception, for tremendous 
thunder-storms are not uncommon there — a circumstance no 
doubt owing to the volcanic nature of that island, as lightning 
accompanies volcanic eruptions everywhere. The sun is 
always above the horizon in the middle of summer, and 
under it in mid- winter, yet there is no absolute darkness. 

The island of Jan Mayen lies nearly midway between 
Iceland and Spitzbergen : it is the most northern volcanic 
country known. Its principal feature is the volcano of 
Beerenberg, 6870 feet high, flanked by enormous glaciers, 
whose lofty snow-capped cone, apparently inaccessible, has 
been seen to emit fire and smoke. 

The south polar lands are equally volcanic, and as deeply 
icebound, as those to the north. Victoria Land, which from 
its extent seems to form part of a continent, was discovered 
by Sir James Ross, who commanded the expedition sent by 
the British Government in 1839 to ascertain the position of 
the south magnetic pole. The extensive tract lies under 
the meridian of New Zealand ; Cape North, its most northern 
point, is situate in 70° 31' S. lat., and 165° 28' E. long. 
To the west of that cape the northern coast of this new land 
terminates in perpendicular ice-cliffs from 200 to 500 feet 
high, stretching as far as the eye can reach, with a chain of 
grounded icebergs extending for miles from the base of the 
cliffs, all of tabular form, and varying in size from one to 
nine or ten miles in circumference. A lofty range of peaked 
mountains rises in the interior at Cape North, covered with 
unbroken snow, only relieved from uniform whiteness by 



]36 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

shadows produced by the undulations of the surface. The 
indentations of the coast are filled with ice many hundreds 
of feet thick, which makes it impossible to land. To the 
east of Cape North the coast trends first to S.E. by E., and 
then in a southerly direction to 78^° -of south latitude, at 
which point it suddenly bends to the east and extends in 
one continuous vertical ice-cliff to an unknown distance 
in that direction. The first view of Victoria Land is de- 
scribed as most magnificent. " On the 11th of January, 
1841, in about latitude 71° S., and longitude 171° E., the 
Antarctic continent was first seen, the general outline of 
which at once indicated its volcanic character, rising steeply 
from the ocean in a stupendous mountain-range, peak above 
peak, enveloped in perpetual snow, and clustered together 
in countless groups resembling a vast mass of crystallization, 
which, as the sun's rays were reflected on it, exhibited a 
scene of such unequalled magnificence and splendour as 
would bafifle all power of language to portray or give the 
faintest conception of. One very remarkable peak, in shape 
like a huge crystal of quartz, rose to the height of 7867 
feet, another to 9096, and a third to 8444 feet above the 
level of the sea. From these peaks ridges descended to the 
coast, terminating abruptly in bold capes, and promontories, 
whose steep escarpments, affording shelter to neither ice nor 
snow, alone showed the jet black lava or basalt which reposed 
beneath the mantle of eternal frost." . ..." On the 2Sth, 
in latitude 77° 31', and longitude 167° 1', the burning vol- 
cano. Mount Erebus, was discovered covered with ice and 
snow from its base to its summit, from which a dense column 
of black smoke towered high above the numerous other lofty 
cones and crateriferous peaks wdth which this extraordinary 
land is studded from the 72d to the 78th degree of latitude. 
Its height above the sea is 12,367 feet; and Mount Terror, an 
extinct crater adjoining it, which has doubtless once given 
vent to fires beneath, attains an altitude little inferior, being 
10,884 feet in height, and endingJn a cape from which a vast 
barrier of ice extended in an easterly direction, checking all 
farther progress south. This continuous perpendicular w^ll 
of ice, varying in height from 200 to 100 feet, its summit 
presenting an almost unvarying level outline, wetraeed. forSOO 
m^iles, when the pack-ice obstructed all farther progress."* 

* Hemarks on ihe Antarctic Continent and Southern Isiancls=, by Robert 
M'Cormicii, Ksq., Surgeon of H.M.S. Erebus. 



AUSTRALIA. 137 

The vertical cliff in question forms a completely solid 
mass of ice about 1000 feet thick : the greater part of which 
is below the surface of the sea ; there is not the smallest ap- 
pearance of a fissure throughout its whole extent ; and the 
intensely blue sky beyond, indicated plainly the great dis- 
tance to which the ice-plains reach southwards. Gigantic 
icicles hang from every projecting point of the icy cliff, 
showing that it sometimes thaws in these latitudes, although 
in the month of February, which corresponds with August 
in England, Fahrenheit's thermometer did not rise above 
14° at noon. In the North Polar Ocean, on the contrary, 
streams of water flow from every iceberg during summer. 
The whole of this country is beyond the pale of vegetation : 
no moss, not even a lichen, covers the barren soil, where 
everlasting winter reigns. Parry Mountains, a lofty range 
stretching south from Mount Terror to the 79th parallel, is 
the most southerly land yet discovered. The south magnetic 
pole, the object of the expedition, is situated in Victoria 
Land, in 75° 5' S. lat., and 154° 8' E. long. 

Various tracts of land have been discovered near the An- 
tarctic circle, and within it, though none in so high a latitude 
as Victoria Land; whether they form part of one large con~- 
tinent remains to be ascertained. Discovery ships, which 
have been sent by the Russian, French, and American Go- 
vernments, have increased our knowledge of these far re- 
gions, and the spirited adventures of British merchants and 
captains of whalers have contributed quite as much. 

The land within the Arctic circle is generally volcanic, at 
least the coast-line, which is all that is yet known, and, being 
covered with snow and ice, it is destitute of vegetation. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE CONTINENT OF AUSTRALIA TASMANIA, OR VAN DIEMEn's 

LAND NEW ZEALAND — NEW GUINEA BORNEO ATOLLS 

ENCIRCLING REEFS BARRIER REEFS CORAL REEFS VOL- 
CANIC ISLANDS AREAS OF SUBSIDENCE AND ELEVATION^ IN 

THE BED OF THE PACIFIC ACTIVE VOLCANOES. 

The labyrinth of islands that is scattered over the Pacific 
Ocean for more* than 30 degrees on each side of the equator 
12* 



138 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

and from the 130th eastern meridian to Sumatra, which all 
but unites this enormous archipelago to the continent of Asia, 
has the group of New Zealand or Tasmania, and the conti- 
nent of Australia, with its appendage, Van Diemen's Land, 
on the south; and altogether forms a region which, from the 
unstable nature of the surface of the earth, is partly the wreck 
of a continent that has been engulfed by the ocean, and partly 
the highest summits of a new one rising above the waves. 
This extensive portion of the globe is, in many parts, terra 
incognito; the Indian Archipelago has never been explored, 
and, with the exception of our colonies in New Holland and 
New Zealand, is little known. 

The continent of New Holland, 2400 miles from east to 
west, and 1700 from north to south, is divided into two un- 
equal parts by the tropic of Capricorn, and consequently has 
both a temperate and a tropical climate. New Guinea, se- 
parated from New Holland by Torres Straits, and traversed 
by the same chain of mountains with New Holland and 
Van Diemen's Land, is so perfectly similar in structure, 
that it forms but a detached member of the adjacent con- 
tinent. 

The coasts of New Holland are indented by very large bays, 
and by harbours that might give shelter to all the navies in 
Europe. The most distinguishing feature of the eastern side, 
which is chiefly occupied- by the British colony of New South 
Wales, is a long chain of mountains which never goes far 
from the coast, and, with the exception of some short devia- 
tions in its southern part, maintains a meridional direction 
through 35° of latitude. It is continued at one extremity 
from Torres Straits, and at the north end of the Gulf of Car- 
pentaria, far, into the interior of New Guinea; and at the 
other it traverses the whole of Van Diemen's Land. It is 
low in the northern parts of New Holland, being in some 
places merely a high land; but about the 30th degree of 
south latitude it Tissumes the form of a regular mountain-chain, 
and, running in a very tortuous line from N.E. to S.W., ter- 
minates its visible course at Wilson's Promontory, the 
southern extremity of the continent. It is continued, how- 
ever, by a chain of mountainous islands across Bass's Straits 
to Cape Portland, in Van Diemen's Land; and from thence 
the range proceeds in a zigzag line of high and picturesque 
mountains to South Cape, where it ends, having, in its course 



NEW SOUTH WALES. 139 

of 1500 miles, separated the drainage of both countries into 
eastern and western waters. 

The distance of the chain from the sea in New South 
Wales is from 50 to 100 miles, but at the 32d parallel it 
recedes to 150, yet soon returns, and forms the wild group 
of the Corecudgy peaks, from whence, under the names of 
the Blue Mountains and Australian Alps, its highest part, il 
proceeds in a general westerly direction to the land's ends. 

The average height of these mountains is only from 2400 
to 4700 feet above the level of the sea, and even Mount Kos- 
ciuszko, the loftiest of the Australian Alps, is not more than 
6500 feet high, yet its position is so favourable, that the view 
from its snowy and craggy top sweeps over 7000 square miles. 
The rugged and savage character of these mountains far ex- 
ceeds what might be expected from their height : in some 
places, it is true, their tops are rounded and covered with 
forest ; but by far the greater part of the chain, though 
wooded along the flanks, is crowned by naked needles, tooth- 
formed peaks, and flat crests of granite or porphyry, mingled 
with patches of snow. The spurs give a terrific character to 
these mountains, and in many places render them altogether 
inaccessible, both in New South Wales and Van Diemen's 
Land. These shoot right and left from the ridgy axis of the 
main range, equal to it in height, and separated from it, and 
from one another, by dark and almost subterraneous gullies, 
like rents in the bosom of the earth, iron-bound by imprac- 
ticable precipi(;es, with streams flowing through them in black 
silent eddies or foaming torrents. The intricate character of 
these ravines, the danger of descending into them, and the 
difficulty of getting out again, render this mountain-chain, in 
New South Wales at least, almost a complete barrier between 
the country on the coast and that in the interior — a circum- 
stance very unfavourable to the latter.* 

In New South Wales the country slopes westward from 
-these mountains to a low, flat, unbroken plain. On the east 
side, darkly verdant and round-topped hills and ridges are 
promiscuously grouped together, leading to a richly-wooded 
undulating country, which gradually descends to the coast, 
and forms the valuable lands of the British colony. Disco- 
vered by Cook in the year 1770, it was not colonized till 

• Memoirs of Count Strzelecki. 



140 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

1778. It has become a prosperous country ; and although 
new settlers in the more remote parts suffer the privations 
and difficulties incident to their position, yet there is educa- 
ted society in the towns, with the comforts and luxuries of 
civilized life. 

The coast-belt on the western side of New Holland is ge- 
nerally of inferior land, with richer tracts interspersed near 
the rivers ; and bounded on the east by a range of primary 
mountains from 3000 to 4000 feet high, in which granite 
occasionally appears. Beyond this the country is level, and 
the land better, though nowhere very productive except in 
grass. 

None of the rivers of New Holland are navigable to any 
great distance from their mouths ; the want of water is se- 
verely felt in the interior, which, as far as it is known, is a 
treeless desert of sand, swamps, and jungle ; yet a belief 
prevails that there is a large sea, or fresh- water lake, in its 
centre ; and this opinion is founded partly on the nature of 
the soil, and also because all the rivers that flow into the sea 
on the northern coast, between the gulfs of Van Diemen and 
Carpentaria, converge towards their sources, as if they served 
for drains to some large body of water. 

However unpropitious the middle of the continent may 
be, and the shores generally have the same barren character, 
there is abundance of fine country inland from the coasts. 
On the north all tropical productions might be raised, and in 
so large a continent there must be extensive tracts of arable 
land, though its peculiar character is pastoral. There are 
large forests on the mountains and elsewhere, yet that mois- 
ture is wanting which clothes other countries in the same 
latitudes with rank vegetation. In the colonies the clearing 
of a great extent of land has increased the mean annual tem- 
perature, so that the climate has become hotter and drier, 
and not thereby improved. 

Van Diemen's Land, of triangular form, has an area of 
27,200 square miles, and is very mountainous. No coun- 
try has a greater number of deep commodious harbours ;'-a-hd 
as most of the rivers, though not navigable to any distance, 
end in arms of the sea, they afTord secure anchorage for ships 
of any size. The mountain-chain that traverses the colony 
of New South Wales, and the islands in Bass's Straits, starts 
anew from Cape Portland, and, winding through Van Die- 



NEW SOUTH WALES NEW ZEALAND. 141 

men's Land in the form of the letter Z, separates it into two 
nearly equal parts, with a mean height of 3750 feet, and at 
an average distance of 40 miles from the sea. It incloses 
the basins of the Derwent and Heron rivers, and, after send- 
ing a branch between them to Hobart Town, ends at South 
Cape. The offsets which shoot in all directions are as savage 
and full of impassable chasms as it is itself. There are cul- 
tivable plains and valleys along the numerous rivers and 
large lakes by which the country is well watered ; so that 
Van Diemen's Land is more agricultural and fertile than the 
adjacent continent, but its climate is wet and cold. The 
uncleared soil of both countries, however, is far inferior to 
that in the greater part of North or South America.* 

Granite constitutes the entire floor of the western portion 
of New South Wales, and extends far into the interior of 
the continent, bearing a striking resemblance in character 
to a similar portion of the Altai' chain described by Baron 
Humboldt. The central axis of the mountain-range, in 
New South Wales and in Van Diemen's Land, is of granite, 
syenite, and quartz ; but in early times there had been 
great invasions of volcanic substances, as many parts of the 
main chain, and most of its offsets, are of the older igneous 
rocks. The fossiliferous strata of the two colonies are 
mostly of the Paleeozoic period, but their fossil fauna is poor 
in species. Some are identical with, and others are repre- 
sentatives of, the species of other countries, even of Eng- 
land. It appears, from their coal-measures, that the flora 
of these countries was as distinct in appearance from that of 
the northern hemisphere, previous to the carboniferous 
period, as it is at the present day. 

New Zealand, divided into three islands by rocky and 
dangerous channels, is superior to Australia in richness of 
soil, fertility, and beauty, and abounds in fine timber and a 
variety of vegetable and mineral productions. High moun- 
tains run through the islands, which in the most northerly 
rise 14,000 feet above the stormy ocean around, buried 
two-thirds of their height in permanent snow and glaciers, 
and exhibiting on the grandest scale all the Alpine charac- 
ters, with the addition of active volcanoes on the eastern and 
western coasts. The coast is a broken country, overspread 

• Count Strzclecki. 



142 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

with a most luxuriant, but dark and gloomy vegetation. 
There are undulating tracts and table-lands of great extent 
without a tree, overrun by ferns and a low kind of myrtle ; 
but the mountain-ridges are clothed with dense and gigantic 
forests. There is much good land and many lakes, with navi- 
gable rivers and the best of harbours ; so that this country is 
peculiarly well suited for a colony, but diflficult of access 
from a boisterous ocean. 

A very different scene from the stormy seas of New Zea- 
land presents itself to the north of Australia. There, vivi- 
fied by the glowing sun of the equator, the islands of the 
Indian Archipelago are of matchless beauty, crowned by 
lofty mountains, loaded with aromatic verdure, that shelve 
to the shore, or dip into a transparent glassy sea. Their 
coasts are cut by deep inlets, and watered by the purest 
streams, which descend in cascades, rushing through wild 
crevices. The whole is so densely covered with palms and 
other beautiful forms of tropical vegetation, that they seem 
to realize a terrestrial paradise. 

Papua, or New Guinea, is the largest island in the Pacific, 
1400 miles long, and 200 in width, with mountains rising 
above mountains, till in the west they attain the height of 
16,000 feet, capped with snovv, and two volcanoes burn on 
its northern shores. From its position so near the equator, 
it is probable that New Guinea has the same vegetation with 
the Spice Islands to the east ; and, from the little that is 
known of it, must be one of the finest countries in exist- 
ence. 

Borneo, next in size to New Guinea, is a noble island, 
divided in two by the equator, and traversed through its 
whole length by magnificent chains of mountains, which 
end in three branches at the Java Sea. Beautiful rivers 
flow from them to the plains, and several of these spring 
from a spacious lake on the table-land in the interior, among 
the peaks of Keni-Balu, the highest point of the island. 
Diamonds, gold, and antimony are among its minerals; 
gums, precious woods, and all kinds of spices and tropical 
fruit, are among its vegetables. 

A volume might be written on the beauty and riches of 
the Indian Archipelago. Many of the islands are hardly 
known, and the interior of the greater number has never 
been explored; so that they oHfer a wide field of discovery 



ATOLLS. 143 

to the enterprising traveller, and they are now of easier 
access since the seas have been cleared of pirates by the 
Honorable Captsin Keppel. The success of Mr. Brook in 
conciliating the natives is a noble instance of the power of 
mind. 

They have become of much importance since our relation 
with China has been altered, and on that account Captain 
Stanley, and other scientific naval officers, have been em- 
ployed to survey the coasts and channels of these unknown 
seas. The great intertropical islands in the Pacific, like- 
wise other large islands, as Ceylon and Madagascar in the 
Indian Seas, which, by the way, do not differ in character 
from the preceding, are really continents in miniature, with 
their mountains and plains, their lakes and rivers ; and in 
climate they vary, like the main land, with the latitude, only 
that continental climates are more extreme both as to heat 
and cold. 

It is a singular circumstance, arising from the instability 
of the crust of the earth, that, with only three or four excep- 
tions, all the smaller tropical islands in the Pacific and In- 
dian Oceans are either volcanic or coralline, except New 
Caledonia and the Seychelles; and it is a startling fact, 
that, in most cases where there are volcanoes, the land is 
rising by slow and almost imperceptible degrees above the 
ocean, whereas there is every reason to believe that those 
vast spaces, studded with coral islands or atolls, are actuaUy 
sinking below it, and have been for ages.* 

There are four different kinds of coral formations in the 
Pacific and Indian Oceans, all entirely produced by the 
growth of organic beings and their detritus ; namely, 
lagoon islands or atolls, encircling reefs, barrier reefs, and 
coral fringes. They are all nearly confined to the tropical 
regions ; the atolls to the Pacific and Indian Oceans alone. 
- An atoll, or lagoon island, consists of a chaplet or ring of 
coral, inclosing a lagoon, or portion of the ocean, in its cen- 
tre. The average breadth of the part of the ring above the 
surface of the sea is about a quarter of a mile, oftener less, 
and it seldom rises higher than from 6 to 10 or 12 feet above 
the waves. Hence the lagoon islands are not discernible at a 
very small distance, unless when they are covered with the 

* Darwin on Coral Reefs. 



144 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

cocoa-nut, palm, or the pandana, which is frequently the 
case. On the outer side this ring or circlet shelves down 
to the distance of 100 or 200 yards from Its edge, so that 
the sea gradually deepens to 25 fathoms, beyond which the 
sides plunge at once into the unfathomable depths of the 
ocean, with a more rapid descent than the cone of any vol- 
cano. Even at the small distance of some hundred yards, 
no bottom has been found with a sounding-line a mile and 
a half long. All the coral at a moderate depth below water 
is alive — all above is dead, being the detritus of the living 
part washed up by the surf, which is so tremendous on the 
windward side of the tropical islands of the Pacific and 
Indian Oceans that it is often heard miles off, and is fre- 
quently the first warning to seamen of their approach to an 
atoll. 

On the lagoon side, where the water is calm, the bound- 
ing-ring, or reef, shelves into it by a succession of ledges, 
also of living coral, though not of the same species with 
those which build the exterior wall and the foundations of 
the whole ring. The perpetual change of water brought 
into contact with the external coral by the breakers probably 
supplies them with more food than they could obtain in a 
quieter sea, which may account for their more luxuriant 
growth. At the same time, they deprive the whole of the 
corals in the interior of the most nourishing part of their 
food, because the still-water in the lagoon, being supplied 
from the exterior by openings in the ring, ceases to produce 
the hardier corals ; and species of more delicate forms, and 
of much slower growth, take their place.* The depth of 
the lagoon varies, in different atolls, from 20 to 50 fathoms, 
the bottom being partly detritus and partly live coral. By 
the growth of the coral, some few of the lagoons have been 
filled up ; but the process is very slow from the causes 
assigned, and also because there are marine animals that 
feed on the living coral, and prevent its indefinite growth. 
In all departments of nature, the exuberant increase of any 
one class is checked and limited by others. The coral is of 
the most varied and delicate structure, and of the most 
beautiful tints. Dark brown, vivid green, rich purple, pink, 
deep blue, peach-colour, yellow, with dazzling white, con- 

* Supplement to the Observations on the Temple of iSer aphis, by Charies 
Babbage, Esq. 



ATOLLS. 145 

trasted with deep shadows, shine through the limpid water ; 
while fish of the most gorgeous hues swim among the branch- 
ing coral, which are of many different kinds, though all 
combine in the structure of these singular islands. Lagoon 
islands are sometimes circular, but more frequently oval or 
irregular in their form. Sometimes they are solitary, or in 
groups, but they occur most frequently in elongated archi- 
pelagos, with the atoUs elongated in the same direction. 
The grouping of atolls bears a perfect analogy to the group- 
ing of the archipelagos of ordinary islands. 

The size of atolls varies from two to ninety miles in 
diameter, and islets are frequently formed on the coral rings 
by the washing up of the detritus, for they are so low that 
the waves break over them in high tides or storms. They 
have openings or channels in their circuit, generally on the 
lee side, where the tide enters, and by these ships may sail 
into the lagoons, which are excellent harbours ; and even on 
the surface of the circlet or reef itself there are occasionally 
boat-channels, between the islets; 

Dangerous Archipelago, lying east of the Society Islands, 
is one of the most remarkable assemblages of atolls in the 
Pacific Ocean. There are 80 of them, generally of a cir- 
cular form, surrounding very deep lagoons, and separated 
from each other by profound depths. The reefs or rings are 
about half a mile wide, and seldom rise more than 10 feet 
above the edge of the surf, which beats on them with such 
violence that it may be heard at the distance of 8 miles ; 
and yet on that side the coral insects build more vigorously, 
and vegetation thrives better, than on the other : many of 
the islets are inhabited. 

The Caroline Archipelago, the largest of all, lies north of 
the equator, and extends its atolls in 60 groups over 1000 
miles. Many are of great size, and all are beat by a tem- 
pestuous sea and occasional hurricanes. The atolls in the 
Pacific Ocean and China Sea are beyond enumeration. 
Though less frequent in the Indian Ocean, none are more 
interesting, or afford more perfect specimens of this peculiar 
formation or the Maldiva and Laccadive Archipelagos, both 
nearly parallel to the coast of Malabar, and elongated in that 
direction. The former is 470 miles long, and about 50 
miles broad, with the atolls arranged in a double row, sepa- 
rated by an unfathomable sea, into which their sides descend 
13 



146 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

with more than ordinary rapidity. The largest atoll is 88 
miles long, and somewhat less than 20 broad ; Suadiva, the 
next in size, is 44 miles by 23, with a large lagoon in its 
centre, to which there is access by 42 openings. There are 
inhabited islets on most of the chaplets or rings not higher 
than 20 feet, while the reefs themselves are nowhere more 
than 6 feet above the surge. 

The Laccadives run to the north of this archipelago in 
a double line of nearly circular atolls, on which are low inha- 
bited islets. 

Encircling reefs differ in no respect from atoll reefs ex- 
cept that they have one or more islands in their lagoon. 
They commonly form a ring round mountainous islands, at a 
distance of two or three miles from the shore, rising on the 
outside from a very deep ocean, and separated from the land 
by a lagoon or channel 200 or 300 feet deep. These reefs 
surround the submarine base of the island, and, rising by a 
steep ascent to the surface, they encircle the island itself. 
The Caroline Archipelago, already mentioned, exhibits good, 
examples of this structure in the encircled islands of Hogolen 
and Seniavine : the narrow ring or encircling reef of the 
former is 135 miles in its very irregular circuit, on which are a 
vast number of islets ; but six or eight islands rise to consi- 
derable height from its lagoon, which is so deep, and the 
opening into it so large, that a frigate might sail into it. 
The encircling reef of Seniavine is narrow and irregular, and 
its lagoon is so nearly filled by a lofty island, that it leaves 
only a strip of water round it from two to five miles w^ide 
and 30 fathoms deep. 

Otaheite, the largest of the Society group, is another in- 
stance of an encircled island of the most beautiful kind ; it 
rises in mountains 7000 feet high, with only a narrow plain 
along the shore, and, except where cleared for cultivation, 
it is covered with forests of cocoa-nut, palms, bananas, 
bread-fruit, and other productions of a tropical climate. 
The lagoon, which encompasses it like an enormous moat, 
is 30 fathoms deep, and is hemmed in from the ocean by 
a coral band of the usual kind, at a distance varying from 
half a mile to three miles. 

Barrier reefs are of precisely the same structure as the two 
l)receding classes, from which they only differ in their posi- 
tion with regard to the land. A barrier reef off the north- 



CORAL REEFS LAGOON ISLANDS. 147 

east coast of the continent of Australia is the grandest coral 
formation existing. Rising at once from an unfathomable 
ocean, it extends 1000 miles along the coast, with a breadth 
varying from 200 yards to a mile, and at an average distance 
of from 20 to 30 miles from the shore, in some places in- 
creasing to 60 and even 70 miles. The great arm of the 
sea included betv^'een it and the land is nowhere less than 
10, occasionally 60 fathoms deep, and is safely navigable 
throughout its whole length, with a few transverse openings, 
by which ships can enter. The reef is really 1200 miles 
long, because it stretches nearly across Torres Straits. 
There are also extensive barrier reefs on the islands of 
Louisiade and New Caledonia, which are exactly opposite 
to the great Australian reef; and as atolls stud that part of 
the Pacific w-hich lies between them, it is called the Coralline 
Sea. The rolling of the billows along the great Australian 
reef has been admirably described. " The long ocean-swell, 
being suddenly impeded by this barrier, lifted itself in one 
great continuous ridge of deep blue water, which, curling 
over, fell on the edge of the reef in an unbroken cataract of 
dazzling white foam. Each line of breaker runs often one 
or two miles in length with not a perceptible gap in its con- 
tinuity. There was a simple gran^leur and display of power 
and beauty in this scene that rose even to sublimity. The 
unbroken roar of the surf, with its regular pulsation of 
thunder, as each succeeding swell fell first on the outer edge 
of the reef, was almost deafening, yet so deep-toned as not 
to interfere with the slightest nearer and sharper sound. 

Both the sound and sight were such as to impress 

the spectator with the consciousness of standing in the pre- 
sence of an overwhelming majesty and power."* 

Coral reefs are distinct from all the foregoing : they are 
merely fringes of coral along the margin of a shore, and, 
as they line the shore itself, they have no lagoons. A vast 
extent of coast, both on the continents and islands, are fringed 
by these reefs, and, as they frequently surround shoals, they 
are very dangerous. 

Lagoon islands are the work of various species of coral 
insects, but those particular polypi which build the profound 
external wall, the foundation and support of the whole ring 

* By Mr. Jukes, xNaturalist to the Surveying Voyage of Captain Blacii- 
woocl, li.'S., in Torres Straits, 



148 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

or reef, are most vigorous when most exposed to the 
breakers: they cannot exist at a greater depth than 25 or 
30 fathoms at most, and die immediately when left dry ; 
yet the coral wall descends precipitously to unfathomable 
depths ; and although the whole of it is not the work of 
these insects, yet the perpendicular thickness of the coral is 
known to be very great, extending hundreds of feet below 
the depth at which these polypi cease to live. From an 
extensive survey of the Coralline seas of the tropics, Mr. 
Darwin has found an explanation of these singular pheno- 
mena in the instability of the crust of the earth. 

Since there are certain proofs that large areas of the dry 
land are gradually rising, and others sinking down, so the 
bottom of the ocean is not exempt from the general change 
that is slowly bringing about a new state of things ; and as 
there is evidence on multitudes of the volcanic islands in 
the Pacific of a rise in certain parts of the basis of the ocean, 
so the lagoon islands indicate a subsidence in others — 
changes arising from the expansion and contraction of the 
strata under the bed of the ocean. 

There are strong reasons for believing that a continent 
once occupied a great part of the tropical Pacific, some part 
of which subsided by slow and imperceptible degrees. As 
portions of it gradually sank down below the surface of the 
deep, the tops of mountains and table-lands would remain 
as islands of different magnitude and elevation, and would 
form archipelagos elongated in the direction of the moun- 
tain-chains. Now the coral-insect which constructs the 
outward wall and mass of the reefs, never builds laterally, 
and cannot exist at a greater depth than 25 or 30 fathoms. 
Hence, if it began to lay the foundations of its reef on the 
submerged flanks of an island, it would be obliged to build 
its wall upwards in proportion as the island sank down, so 
that at length a lagoon would be formed between it and 
the land. As the subsidence continued, the lagoon would 
increase, the island would diminish, and the base of the coral 
reef would sink deeper and deeper, while the insects would 
always keep its top just below the surface of the ocean, till 
at length the island would entirely disappear, and a perfect 
atoll would be left. If the island were mountainous, each 
peak would form a separate island in the lagoon, and che 
encircled islands would have different forms, which the 



VOLCANIC ISLANDS. 149 

reefs would follow continuously. This theory perfectly 
explains the appearances of the lagoon islands and barrier 
reefs, the continuity of the reef, the islands in the middle of 
the lagoons, the different distances of the reefs from them, 
and the forms of the archipelago so exactly similar to the 
archipelagos of ordinary islands, all of which are but the 
tops of submerged mountain-chains, and generally partake 
of their elongated forms. 

Every intermediate form between an atoll and an encir- 
cling reef exists; New Caledonia is a link between them. 
A reef runs along the north-western coast of that island 400 
miles, and for many leagues never approaches within 8 
miles of its shore, and the distance increases to 16 miles 
near the soithern extremity. At the other end the reefs are 
continued on each side 150 miles beyond the submarine pro- 
longation of the land marking the former extent of the island. 
In the lagoon of Keeling Atoll, situate in the Indian Ocean 
600 miles south of Sumatra, many fallen trees and a ruined 
store-house show that it has subsided : these movements 
take place during the earthquakes at Sumatra, which are 
also felt in this atoll. Violent earthquakes have lately been 
felt at Vanrkora, a lofty island with an encircling reef in the 
western part of the South Pacific, and on which there are 
marks of recent subsidence. Other proofs are not wanting 
of this great movement in the beds of the Pacific and Indian 
Oceans. 

The extent of the atoll formations, including under this 
name encircling reefs, is enormous. In the Pacific, from 
the southern end of Low Archipelago to the northern end of 
Marshall Archipelago, a distance of 4500 miles, and many 
degrees of latitude in breadth, there is not an island that is 
not of atoll formation. The same may be said of the space 
in the Indian Ocean between Saya de Matha and the end of 
the Laccadives, which includes 25 degrees of latitude — 
such are the enormous areas that have been, and probably 
still are, slowly subsiding. Other spaces of great extent 
may also be mentioned — as the large archipelago of the 
Carolinas, that in the Coralline Sea off the north-west coast 
of Australia, and an extensive one in the China Sea. 

Though the volcanic islands in the Pacific are so nume- 
rous, there is not one within the areas mentioned, and there 
is not an active volcano within several hundred miles of an 
13* 



150 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

archipelago, or even group of atolls. This is the more in- 
teresting, as recent shells and fringes of dead coral, found at 
various heights on their surfaces, show that the volcanic 
islands have been rising noore and more above the surface 
of the ocean for a very long time. 

The volcanic islands also occupy particular zones in the 
Pacific, and it is found from extensive observation that all 
the points of eruption fall on the areas of elevation. 

One of the most terribly active of these zones begins with 
the Banda group of islands, and includes Timor, Sumbawa, 
Bali, Java, and Sumatra, separated only by narrow channels, 
and altogether forming a gently curved line 2000 miles long ; 
but as the volcanic zone is continued through Barren Island, 
in the Bay of Bengal, northward to an island off the Birmah 
coast, the entire length of this volcanic range is a great deal 
more. 

The little island of Gounong-Api, belonging to the Banda 
group, contains a volcano of great activity ; and such is the 
elevating pressure of the submarine fire in that part of the 
ocean, that a mass of black basalt rose up of such magni- 
tude as to fill a bay 60 fathoms deep so quietly that the 
inhabitants were not aware of what was going on till it was 
nearly done. Timor and the other adjacent islands also 
bear marks of recent elevation. 

There is not a spot of its size on the face of the earth that 
contains so many volcanoes as the island of Java.* A 
range of volcanic mountains, from 5000 to 13,000 feet high, 
forms the central crest of the island, and ends to the east in 
a series of 38 separate volcanoes with broad bases rising gra- 
dually into cones. They all stand on a plain but little ele- 
vated above the sea, and each individual mountain seems 
to have been formed independently of the rest. Most of 
them are of great antiquity, and are covered with thick 
vegetation. Some are extinct or only emit smoke ; from 
others sulphureous vapours issue with prodigious violence ; 
one has a large crater filled w^th boiling water ; and a few 
have had fierce eruptions of late years. The island is covered 
with volcanic spurs from the main ridge, united by cross 
chains, together with other chains of less magnitude but no 
less fury. 

* Sir Stamford Raffles on Java. 



ACTIVE VOLCANOES. 151 

In 1772 the greater part of one of the largest volcanic 
mountains was swallowed up after a short but severe com- 
bustion : a luminous cloud enveloped the mountain on the 
11th of August, and soon after the huge mass actually dis- 
appeared under the earth with tremendous noise, carrying 
with it about 90 square miles of the surrounding country, 40 
villages, and 2957 of their inhabitants. 

The northern coast of Java is flat and swampy, but the 
southern provinces are beautiful and romantic ; yet in the 
lovely peaceful valleys the stillness of night is disturbed 
by the deep roaring of the volcanoes, many of which are 
perpetually burning with slow but terrific action. 

Separated by narrow channels of the sea, Bali and Sura- 
bawa are but a continuation of Java, the same in nature 
and structure, but on a smaller scale, their mountains being 
little more than 8000 feet high. 

The intensity of the volcanic force under this part of the 
Pacific may be imagined from the eruption of Tomboro in 
Sumbawa in 1815, which continued from the 5th of April 
till July : the explosions were heard at the distance of 970 
miles ; and in Java, at the distance of 300 miles, the dark- 
ness during the day was like that of deep midnight. The 
country around was ruined, and the town of Tomboro was 
submerged by heavy rollers from the ocean. 

In Sumatra the extensive granitic formations of eastern 
Asia join the volcanic series which occupies so large a por- 
tion of the Pacific. This most beautiful of islands presents 
the boldest aspect : it is indented by arms of the most trans- 
parent sea, and watered by innumerable streams ; it displays 
in its vegetation all the bright colouring of the tropics. 
Here the submarine fire finds vent in three volcanoes on the 
southern, and one on the northern side of the island. A 
few atolls, many hundreds of miles to the south, show that 
this volcanic zone alternates with an area of subsidence. 

More to the north, and nearly parallel to the preceding 
zone, another line of volcanic islands begins to the north of 
New Guinea, and passes through New Britain, New Ireland, 
Solomon's Islands, and the New Hebrides, containing many 
open vents. This range, or area of elevation, separates the 
Coralline Sea from the great chain of atolls on the north 
between Ellice's group and the Caroline Islands, so that it 
lies between two areas of subsidence. 



152 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The third and gjreatest of all the zones of volcanic islands 
bejrins at the northern extremity of Celebes, and includes 
Gilolo, one of the Molucco group, which is bristled with 
volcanic cones ; and from thence it may be traced north- 
wards through the Philippine Islands and Formosa : bending 
thence to the north-east, it passes through Loo Choo, the 
Japan Archipelago, and is continued by the Kurile Islands 
to the peninsula of Kamtschatka, where there are several 
active volcanoes of great elevation. 

The Philippine Islands and Formosa form the volcanic 
separation between the atoll region in the China Sea and 
that of the Caroline and Pellew groups. 

There are six islands east of Jephoon, in the Japan Archi- 
pelago, which are subject to eruptions, and the internal fire 
breaks through the Kurile Islands in 18 vents, besides having 
raised two new islands in the beginning of this century, one 
four miles round and the other 3000 feet high, though the 
ocean there is so deep that the bottom has not been reached 
with a line 200 fathoms long. 

Thus some long rent in the earth had reached from the 
tropics to the gelid seas of Okhotsk, probably connected 
with the peninsula of Kamtschatka : a new one begins to 
the east of the latter in the Aleutian Islands, which are of 
the most barren and desolate aspect, perpetually beaten by 
the surge of a restless ocean, and bristled by the cones of 
24 volcanoes ; they sweep in a half-moon round Behring's 
Sea till they join the volcanic peninsula of Russian Ame- 
rica. 

The line of volcanic agency has been followed far beyond 
the limits of the coral working insects, which extend but a 
short way on each side of the tropics ; but it has been shown 
that, in the equatorial regions, immense areas of elevation 
alternate with as great areas of subsidence ; north of New 
Holland they are so mixed that it indicates a point of con- 
vergence.* 

On the other side of the Pacific the whole chain of the 
Andes, and the adjacent islands of Juan Fernandez and 
the Galapagos, form a vast volcanic area, which is actually 
now rising. And though there are few volcanic islands 
north of the zone of atolls, yet those that be indicate great 

* Darwin on Volcanic Islands, 



ACTIVE VOLCANOES. 153 

internal activity, especially the Sandwich Islands, where the 
volcanoes of Owhyhee are inferior to none in awful sub- 
limity. 

It may be observed that, where there are coral fringes, 
the land is either rising or stationary ; for, were it subsiding, 
lagoons would be formed. On the contrary, there are many 
fringing reefs on the shores of volcanic islands along the 
coasts of the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the West In- 
dian islands, all of which are rising. Indeed, this occur- 
rence, in numberless instances, coincides with the exist- 
ence of upraised organic remains on the land. 

As the only coral formations in the Atlantic are fringing 
reefs, the bed of that ocean is not sinking ; and, with the 
exception of the Leeward Islands, the Canaries, and Cape 
de Verde groups, there are no active volcanoes on the islands 
or on the coasts of that ocean. The Peak of Teneriffe is a 
splendid instance. 

At present the great continent has few centres of volcanic 
action in comparison with what it once had. The Mediter- 
ranean is still undermined by fire, which occasionally finds 
vent in Vesuvius and the stately cone of Etna. Though 
Stromboli constantly pours forth an inexhaustible stream of 
lava-, and a temporary island now and then starts up from 
the sea, the volcanic action is diminished, and Italy has be- 
come comparatively more tranquil. 

The table-land of western Asia, especially Azerbijan, had 
once been the seat of intense commotion, now spent, or only 
smoking from the snowy cone of Demavend. The table- 
land of eastern Asia furnishes the solitary instance of igneous 
explosion at a distance from the sea in the volcanic chain 
of the Thean-Tchan. 

The seat of activity has been perpetually changing. 
There always has been volcanic action, possibly more 
intense in former times, but even at present it extends 
from pole to pole. 

Notwithstanding the numerous volcanic vents in the 
globe, many places are subject to violent earthquakes, which 
fuin the works of man, and often change the configuration 
f the country. 

Earthquakes are produced by fractures and sudden heav- 
ings and subsidences in the elastic crust of the globe, from 
the pressure of the liquid fire, vapour, and gases in its inte- 



154 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

rior, which there find vent, relieve the tension which the 
strata acquire during their slow refrigeration, and restore 
equilibrium. But whether the initial impulse be eruptive, 
or a sudden pressure upvvards, the shock originating in that 
point is propagated throup;h the elastic surface of the earth 
in a series of circular or oval undulations, similar to those 
produced by dropping a stone into a pool, and like them 
they become broader and lower as the distance increases, 
till they gradually subside : in this manner the shock travels 
through the land, becoming weaker and weaker till it ter- 
minates. When the impulse begins in the interior of a con- 
tinent, the elastic wave is propagated through the solid 
crust of the earth, as well as in sound through the air, and 
is transmitted from the former to the ocean, where it is 
finally spent and lost, or, if very powerful, is continued in 
the apposite land. Almost all the great earthquakes how- 
ever have their origin in the bed of the ocean, far from land, 
whence the shocks travel in undulations to the surrounding 
shores. 

No doubt many of small intensity are imperceptible ; it is 
only the violent efforts of the internal forces, that can over- 
come the pressure of the ocean's bed, and that of the super- 
incumbent water. The internal pressure is supposed to find 
relief most readily in a belt of great breadth that surrounds 
the land at a considerable distance from the coast, and, 
being formed of its debris, the internal temperature is in a 
perpetual state of fluctuation, which would seem to give 
rise to sudden flexures and submarine eruptions. 

When the original impulse is a fracture or eruption of 
lava in the bed of the deep ocean, two kinds of waves or 
undulations are produced and propagated simultaneously — 
one through the bed of the ocean, which is the true earth- 
quake shock : and coincident with this a wave is formed 
and propagated on the surface of the ocean, which rolls to 
the shore, and reaches it in time to complete the destruction 
long after the shock or wave through the solid ocean-bed 
has arrived and spent itself on the land. The height to 
which the surface of the ground is elevated, or the vertical 
height of the shock-wave, varies from one inch to two or 
three feet. This earth-wave, on passing under deep water, 
is imperceptible, but when it comes to soundings it carries 
with it to the land a long flat aqueous wave : on arriving at 



EARTHQUAKES. 1 55 

the beach the water drops in arrear from the superior velo- 
city of the shock, so that at that moment the sea seems to 
recede before the great ocean- wave arrives. 

It is the small forced wave that gives the shock to ships, 
and not the great wave; but when ships are struck in very 
deep water, the centre of disturbance is either immediately 
under, or very nearly under, the vessel. 

Three other series of undulations are formed simulta- 
neously with the preceding, by which the sound of the 
explosion is conveyed through the earth, the ocean, and 
the air, with different velocities. That through the earth 
travels at the rate of from 7000 to 10,000 feet in a second in 
hard rock, and somewhat less in looser materials, and 
arrives at the coast a short time before, or at the same mo- 
ment with the shock, and produces the hollow sounds that 
are the harbingers of ruin ; then follows a continuous suc- 
cession of sounds, like the rolling of distant thunder, formed, 
first, by the wave that is .propagated through the water of 
the sea, which travels at the rate of 4700 feet in a second ; 
and, lastly, by that passing through the air, which only 
takes place when ihe origin of the earthquake is a subma- 
rine explosion, and travels with a velocity of 1123 feet in a 
second. The rolling sounds precede the arrival of the 
great wave on the coasts, and are continued after the terrific 
catastrophe when the eruption is extensive. 

When there is a succession of shocks all the phenomena 
are repeated. 

The velocity of the great oceanic wave varies as the 
square root of the depth ; it consequently has a rapid pro- 
gress^ through deep water, and less when it comes to sound- 
ings. The velocity of the shock varies with the elasticity of 
the strata it passes through. The undulations of the earth 
are subject to the same laws as those of light and sound ; 
hence when the shock or earth-wave passes through strata 
of different elasticity, it will partly be reflected, and a wave 
will be sent back, producing a shock in a contrary direction, 
and partly refracted, or its course changed ; so that shocks 
will occur both upwards and downwards, to the right or to 
the left of the original line of transit. Hence most damage 
is done at the junction of deep alluvial plains with the hard 
strata of the mountains, as in the great earthquake in Cala- 
bria in the year 1783. 



156 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

When the height of the undulations is small, the earth- 
quake will be a horizontal motion, which is the least de- 
structive ; when the height is great, the vertical and hori- 
zontal motions are combined, and the effect is terrible ; but 
the worst of all is a verticose or twisting motion, which 
nothing can resist. It is occasioned by the crossing of two 
waves of horizontal vibration, which unite at their point of 
intersection and form a rotatory movement. This, and the 
interferences of shocks arriving at the same point from dif- 
ferent origins or routes of different length, account for the 
repose in some places, and those extraordinary phenomena 
that took place during the earthquake of 1783, in Calabria, 
where the shock diverged on all sides from a centre through 
a highly elastic base covered with alluvial soil, which was 
tossed about in every direction. The dynamics of earth- 
quakes are ably discussed by Mr. Mallet in a very interest- 
ing paper in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. 

There are few places where the earth is long at rest ; for, 
independently of those secular elevations and subsidences 
that are in progress over such extensive tracts of country, 
small earthquake shocks must be much more frequent than 
we imagine, though imperceptible to our senses, and only 
to be detected by means of instruments. The shock of an 
earthquake at Lyons in February, 1822, was not generally 
perceptible at Paris, yet the wave reached and passed under 
that city, and was detected by the swinging of the large 
declination needle at the Observatory, which had previously 
been at rest. Even in Scotland 139 slight shocks have been 
registered within a few years, of which 81 occurred at 
Comrie, in Perthshire, but the cause is at no great depth 
under the surface, as the shocks extended to a small dis- 
tance. 

The undulations of some of the great earthquakes have 
spread to an enormous extent : that which destroyed Lisbon 
had its origin immediately under the devoted city, from 
whence the shock extended over an area of about 700,000 
square miles, or a twelfth part of the circumference of the 
globe : the West Indian islands, and the lakes in Scotland, 
Norway, and Sweden, were agitated by it. It began without 
warning, and in five minutes'the city was a heap of ruins. 

'fhe earthquake of 1783, in Calabria, which completely 
changed the face of the country, lasted only two minutes, 



THE OCEAN. 157 

but it was not very extensive. Baron Humboldt's works are 
full of interesting details on the subject, especially with re- 
gard to the tremendous convulsions in South America. 

Sometimes a shock has been carried underground which 
was not felt at the surface, as in the year 1802, in the silver 
mine of Marienberg, in the Hartz, In some instances miners 
have been insensible to shocks felt on the surface above, 
which happened at Fahlun, in Sweden, in 1823 — circum- 
stances depending, in both instances, on the elasticity of the 
strata, the depth of the impulses, or obstacles that may have 
changed the course of the terrestrial undulation. During 
earthquakes, dislocations of strata take place, the course of 
rivers is changed, and in some instances they have been 
permanently dried up, rocks are hurled down, masses raised 
up, and the configuration of the country altered ; but if there 
be no fracture at the point of original impulse, there will be 
no noise. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Ti4E OCEAN ITS SIZE, COLOUR, PRESSURE, AND SALTNESS— 

TIDES, WAVES, AND CURRENTS TEMPERATURE — NOHTH 

AND SOUTH POLAR ICE INLAND SEAS. 

The ocean, which fills a deep cavity in the globe and covers 
three-fourths of its surface, is so unequally distributed 
that there is three times more land in the northern than in 
the southern hemisphere. The torrid zone is chiefly occu- 
pied by sea, and only one twenty-seventh part of the land 
on one side of the earth has land opposite to it on the other. 
The form assumed by this immense mass of water is that of 
a spheroid flattened at the poles ; and as its mean level is 
always nearly the same, for any thing we know to the con- 
trary, it serves as a base for measuring the height of the 
land. 

The bed of the ocean, like that of the land, of which it 
is the continuation, is diversified by plains and mountains, 
table-lands and valleys, sometimes barren, sometimes covered 
with marine vegetation, and teeming with life. Now it 
sinks into depths, which the sounding-line has never 
14 



158 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

fathomed, now it appears in chains of island, or rises near 
to the surface in hidden reefs and shoals, perilous to the 
mariner. Springs of fresh water rise from the bottom, vol- 
canoes eject their lavas and scoriae, and earthquakes trouble 
the deep waters. 

The ocean is continually receiving the spoils of the land, 
and from that cause would constantly be decreasing in depth, 
and, as the quantity of water is always the same, its super- 
ficial extent would increase : there are however counter- 
acting causes to check this tendency ; the secular elevation 
of the land over extensive tracts, in many parts of the world, 
is one of the most important.* Volcanoes, coral islands, and 
barrier reefs show that great changes of level are constantly 
taking place in the bed of the ocean itself, — that symmetrical 
bands of subsidence and elevation extend alternately over 
an area equal to a hemisphere, from which it may be con- 
cluded that the balance is always maintained between the 
sea and land, although the distribution may vary in the 
lapse of time. 

The Pacific or Great Ocean exceeds in superficies all the 
dry land on the globe. It has an area of 50,000,000 square 
miles: including the Indian Ocean its area is nearly 
70,000,000. Its breadth from Peru to the coast of Africa 
is 16,000 miles : it is shorter than the Atlantic, as it only 
communicates with the Arctic Ocean by Behring's Strait, 
whereas the Atlantic, as far as we know, stretches from pole 
to pole. 

The continent of Australia occupies a comparatively small 
portion of the Pacific, while innumerable islands stud its 
surface many degrees on either side of the equator, of which 
a great number are volcanic, showing that its bed has been, 
and indeed actually is, the theatre of violent igneous erup- 
tions. So great is its depth that a line five miles long has 
not reached the bottom in many places. Between the tropics 
it is generally unfathomable ; yet, as the whole mass of the 
ocean counts for little in the total amount of terrestrial gravi- 
tation, its mean depth is but a small fraction of the radius of 
the globe. 

The bed of the Atlantic is a long deep valley with few 
mountains, or at least but few that raise their summits in 

' ' * Darwin on Coral Reefs. 



THE OCEAN : ITS PRESSURE. 159 

islands above its surface. Its greatest breadth, including 
the Gulf of Mexico, is 5000 miles, and its superficial extent 
is about 25,000,000 square nailes. This sea is exceedingly 
deep. In 27° 26' S. lat. and 17° 29' W. long. Sir James 
Ross found the depth to be 14, 550 feet ; 450 miles west 
from the Cape of Good Hope it was 16,062 feet, or 332 feet 
more than the height of Mont Blanc; and in 15° 3' S. lat. 
and 23° 14' W. long, a line of 27,600 feet did not reach 
the bottom, which is equal to the height of some of the most 
elevated peaks of the Himalaya, but there is reason to believe 
that many parts of the ocean are still deeper. A great part 
of the German Ocean is only 93 feet deep, though on the 
Norwegian side, where the coast is bold, the depth is 910 
fathoms. 

Immense sand-banks often project from the land, which 
rise from great depths to within a few fathoms of the surface. 
Of these the Aghullus Bank, at the Cape of Good Hope, is 
one of the most remarkable : that off Newfoundland is still 
greater ; it consists of a double bank, which is supposed to 
reach to the north of Scotland. The Dogger Bank, in the 
North Sea, and many others, are well known : some on the 
coast of Norway are surrounded by such deep water that 
they must be submarine table-lands. All are the resort of 
fish. 

The pressure at great depths is enormous. In the Arctic 
Ocean, where the specific gravity of the water is least, on 
account of the melting of the ice, the pressure at the depth 
of a mile and a quarter is 2809 pounds on a square inch of 
surface : this was confirmed by Captain Scoresby, who says, 
in his " Arctic Voyages," that the wood of a boat suddenly 
dragged to a great depth by a whale, was found when 
drawn up so saturated with water forced into its pores, that 
it sank in water like a stone for a year afterwards : even 
sea-water is reduced in bulk from 20 to 19 solid inches at 
the depth of 20 fathoms. The compression that a whale 
can endure is wonderful. All fish are capable of sustaining 
great pressures as well as sudden changes of pressure. 
Divers in the pearl-fisheries exert great muscular strength ; 
but man cannot bear the increased pressure at great depths, 
because his lungs are full of air, nor can he endure the 
diminution of it at great altitudes above the earth. 

The depth to which the sun's light penetrates the ocean 



160 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

depends upon the transparency of the water, and cannot be 
less than twice the depth to which a person can see from the 
surface. In parts of the Arctic Ocean shells are distinctly 
seen at the depth of SO fathoms ; and among the West India 
islands, in 30 fathoms water, the bed of the sea is as clear 
as if seen in air : shells, corals, and sea-weeds of every hue 
display the tints of the rainbow. 

The purest spring is not more limpid than the water of the 
ocean : it absorbs all the prismatic colours except that of ul- 
tramarine, which, being reflected in every direction, imparts 
a hue approaching the azure of the sky. The colour of the 
sea varies with every gleam of sunshine or passing cloud, 
although its true tint is always the same when seen sheltered 
from atmospheric influence. The reflection of a boat on the 
shady side is often of the clearest blue, while the surface of 
the water exposed to the sun is bright as burnished gold. 
The waters of the ocean also derive their colour from insects 
of the infusorial kind, vegetable substances, and minute parti- 
cles of matter. It is white in the Gulf of Guinea, black round 
the Maldives ; at California the Vermilion Sea is so called 
on account of the red colours of the infusoria it contains: the 
same red colour was observed by Magellan at the mouth of 
the River Plata. I'he Persian Gulf is called the Green Sea 
by eastern geographers, and there is a tract of green water 
off" the Arabian coast so distinct that a ship has been seen in 
green and blue water at the same time. Rapid transitions 
take place in the Arctic Sea from ultramarine to olive-green, 
from purity to opacity. These appearances are not delusive, 
but constant as to place and colour: the green is produced 
by myriads of minute insects, which devour one another, and 
are a prey to the whale. The colour of clear shallow water 
depends upon that of its bed ; over chalk or white sand it is 
apple-green, over yellow sand dark green, brown or black 
over dark ground, and grey over mud. 

The sea is supposed to have acquired its saline principle 
when the globe was in the act of subsiding from a gaseous 
state. The density of sea-water depends upon the quantity 
of saline matter it contains : the proportion is generally about 
three or four per cent., though it varies in diflerent places; 
the ocean contains more salt in the southern than in the 
northern hemisphere,- the Atlantic more than the Pacific. 
The greatest proportion of salt in the Pacific is in the paral- 



THE ocean: its tides. 161 

lels of 22° N. lat. and 17° S. lat. : near the equator it is less ; 
and in the Polar Seas it is least, from the melting of the ice. 
The saltness varies with the seasons in these regions, and 
the fresh water, being lighter, is uppermost. Rain makes 
the surface of the sea fresher than the interior parts, and the 
influx of rivers renders the ocean less salt at their estuaries : 
the Atlantic is brackish 300 miles from the mouth of the 
Amazons. Deep seas are more saline than those that are 
shallow, and inland seas communicating with the main are 
less salt, from the rivers that flow into them: to this however 
the Mediterranean is an exception, occasioned by the great 
evaporation and the influx of salt currents from the Black 
Sea and the Atlantic. The water in the Straits of Gibraltar, 
at the depth of 670 fathoms, is four times as salt as that at 
the surface. 

Fresh water freezes at the temperature of 32° of Fahren- 
heit; the point of congelation of salt water is lower. As the 
specific gravity of the water of the Greenland Sea is about 
1-02664, it does not freeze till its temperature is reduced to 
28^° of Fahrenheit; so that the saline principle preserves 
the sea in a liquid state to a much higher latitude than if it 
had been fresh, while it is better suited for navigation by its 
greater buoyancy. The healthfulness of the sea is ascribed 
to the mixing of the water by tides and currents, which pre- 
vents the accumulation of putrescent matter. 

Raised by the moon an.d modified by the sun in the equa- 
torial seas, the central area of the two oceans is occupied by 
a great tidal wav^, which oscillates continually, keeping time 
with the returns of the moon, having its motion kept up by 
her attraction acting at each return. The height of these 
oceanic tides depends upon the relative position of the sun 
and moon, and upon their declination and distances from the 
earth. From the skirts of this oscillating central area, par- 
tial tides diverge in all directions, whose velocity depends 
upon the depth and local circumstances of the sea : these 
derivative tides are so much influenced by the form of the 
shore along which they travel that they become of great mag- 
nitude in the higher latitudes, while near the centre of the 
oscillating area the oceanic tide is often very small. The 
spring-tides rise 50 or 60 feet on some parts of the British 
coast: in the Bay of Fundy, in Nova Scotia, they rise 60 
feet ; at St. Helena they never exceed three feet ; and there 
14* 



162 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

is scarcely any tide among many of the tropical islands in 
the Pacific. 

At the equator the tide follows the moon at the rate of 
1000 miles an hour ; but the derivative tides are so retarded 
by the form of coasts and irregularities at the bottom of the 
sea, that a tide is sometimes impeded by an obstacle till a 
second tide reaches the same point by a different course, and 
the water rises to double the height it would otherwise have 
attained : a complete extinction of the tide takes place when 
a high- water interferes in the same manner with a low- water, 
as in the centre of the German Ocean ; and when two un- 
equal tides of contrary phases of rise and fall meet, the greater 
overpowers the lesser, and the resulting height is equal to 
their difjerence : such varieties occur chiefly among islands, 
and at the estuaries of rivers. When the tide flows suddenly 
up a river, it checks the descent of the stream, so that a high 
wave, called a bore, is driven with force up the channel. 
This sometimes occurs in the Ganges ; and in the Amazons, 
at the equinoxes, during three successive days, five of these 
destructive waves, from 12 to 15 feet high, follow one ano- 
ther up the river daily. In the Turury Channel, in Cayenne, 
the sea rises 40 feet in five minutes, and as suddenly ebbs. 
There may be some small flow of the water westward with 
the oceanic tide under the equator, though it is impercepti- 
ble ; but that does not necessarily follow, since the tide in 
the open ocean is merely an alternate rise and fall of the sur- 
face, so that the motion, not the water, follows the moon. 
A bird resting on the sea is not carried forward as the waves 
rise and fall: indeed, if so heavy a body as water were to 
move at the rate of 1000 miles in an hour, it would cause 
universal destruction, since in the most violent hurricanes 
the velocity of the wind hardly exceeds 100 miles an hour. 
Over shallows however, and near the land, the water does 
advance, and rolls in waves on the beach. 

The friction of the wind combines with the tides in agita- 
ting the surface of the ocean, and, according to the theory 
of undulations, each produces its effect independently of the 
other; wind, however, not only raises waves, but causes a 
transfer of superficial water also. Attraction between the 
particles of air and water, as well as the pressure of the at- 
mosphere, brings its lower stratum into adhesive contact with 
the surface of the sea. If the motion of the wind be parallel 



THE OCEAN : ITS WAVES. 163 

to the surface, there will still be friction, but the water will 
be smooth as a mirror; but if it be inclined, in however small 
a degree, a ripple will appear. The friction raises a minute 
wave, whose elevation protects the water beyond it from the 
wind, which consequently impinges on the surface at a small 
angle : thus, each mipulse combining with the other produces 
an undulation which continually advances. 

Those beautiful silvery streaks on the surface of a tranquil 
sea called catspaws by sailors are owing to a partial devia- 
tion of the wind from a horizontal direction. The resistance 
of the water increases with the strength and inclination of 
the wind. The agitation at first extends little below the sur- 
face, but, in long-continued gales, even the deep water is 
troubled : the billows rise higher and higher ; and as the sur- 
face of the sea is driven before the wind, their " monstrous 
heads," 'impelled beyond the perpendicular, fall in wreaths 
of foam. Sometimes several waves overtake one another, 
and form a sublime and awful sea. The highest waves known 
are those which occur during a north-west gale off the Cape 
of Good Hope, aptly called the Cape of Storms by ancient 
Portuguese navigators ; and Cape Horn seems to be the abode 
of the tempest. The sublimity of the scene, united to^the 
threatened danger, naturally leads to an over-estimate of the 
magnitude of the waves, which appear to rise mountains 
high, as they are proverbially said to do. There is, how- 
ever, reason to doubt if the highest waves off the Cape of 
Good Hope exceed 40 feet from the hollow trough to the 
summit. They are said to rise 20 feet off Australia, and 16 
feet in the Mediterranean. The waves are short and abrupt 
in small, shallow seas, and on that account are more danger- 
ous than the long rolling billows of the wide ocean. 

The undulation called a ground-swell^ occasioned by the 
continuance of a heavy gale, is totally different from the 
tossing of the billows, which are confined to the area vexed 
by the wind, whereas the ground-swell is rapidly transmitted 
through the ocean to regions far beyond the direct influence 
of the gale that raised it; and it continues to heave the 
smooth and glassy surface of the deep long after the wind 
and the billows are at rest. A swell frequently comes from 
a quarter in direct opposition to the wind, and sometimes 
from various points of the compass at the same time, produ- 
cing avast commotion even in a dead calm, without ruffling 



164 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the surface. They are the heralds that point out to the mari- 
ner the distant region where the tempest has howled, and 
they are not unfrequently the harbingers of its approach. In 
addition to the other dangers from polar ice, there is always 
a swell at its margin. 

Heavy swells are propagated through the ocean, till they 
gradually subside from the friction of the water, or till the 
undulation is checked by the resistance of land, when they 
roll in surf to the shore, or dash in spray and foam over 
rocks. The rollers at the Cape de Verde Islands, are seen 
at a great distance approaching like mountains. When a 
gale is added to a ground-swell, the commotion is great, and 
the force of the surge tremendous, tossing huge masses of 
rock and shaking the cliffs to their foundation. The vio- 
lence of the tempest is sometimes so intense as to quell the 
billows and blow the water out of the sea, driving it in a 
heavy shower called spoon-drift by sailors. On such occa- 
sions saline particles have impregnated the air to the dis- 
tance of 50 miles inland. 

The effect of a gale descends to a comparatively small 
distance below the surface ; the sea is probably tranquil at 
the depth of 200 or 300 feet : were it not so, the water 
would be turbid and shell-fish would be destroyed. Any 
thing that diminishes the friction of the wind smooths the 
surface of the sea : for example, oil, or a small stream of 
packed ice, which suppresses even a swell. When the air 
is moist its attraction for water is diminished, and, conse- 
quently, so is the friction ; hence the sea is not so rough in 
rainy as in dry weather. 

Currents of various extent, magnitude, and velocity dis- 
turb the tranquillity of the ocean ; some of them depend 
upon circumstances permanent as the globe itself, others on 
ever-varying causes. Constant currents are produced by 
the combined action of the rotation of the earth, the heat of 
the sun, and the trade winds ; periodical currents are occa- 
sioned by tides, monsoons, and other periodical winds ; 
temporary currents arise from the tides, melting ice, and 
from every gale of some duration. A perpetual circulation 
is kept up in the waters of the main by these vast marine 
streams. They are sometimes superficial, sometimes sub- 
marine, according as their density is greater or less than 
that of the surrounding sea. 



THE OCEAN : ITS CURRENTS. 165 

The exchange of water between the poles and the equator 
gives rise to the great permanent currents in the ocean. 
Although these depend upon the same causes as the trade 
winds, they differ essentially in this respect — that, whereas 
the atmosphere is heated from below by its contact with 
the earth, and transmits the heat to the strata above, the sea 
is heated at its surface by the direct rays of the sun, which 
diminish the speciiic gravity of the upper strata, especially 
between the tropics, and also occasion strong and rapid 
evaporation, both of which causes disturb the equilibrium of 
the ocean. The rotation of the earth also gives the water a 
tendency to take an oblique direction in its flow towards 
the equatorial regions, as, in order to restore the equilibrium, 
deranged by so many circumstances, great streams perpetu- 
ally descend from either pole towards the equator. When 
these currents leave the poles they flow directly north and 
south ; but, before proceeding far, their motion is deflected 
by tlwi diurnal rotation of the earth. At the poles they have 
no rotatory motion ; and although they gain it more and 
more by the friction of the water in their progress to the 
equator, which revolves at the rate of 1000 miles an hour, 
they arrive at the tropics before they have acquired the 
same velocity of rotation with the intertropical ocean. On 
that account they are left behind, and consequently seem to 
flow in a direction contrary to the diurnal rotation of the 
earth. For that reason the whole surface of the ocean, for 
30 degrees on each side of the equator, has an apparent 
tendency from east to west, which produces all the effects 
of a great current or stream flowing in that direction. The 
trade winds, which blow constantly nearly the same way, 
combine to give this current a velocity of 9 or 10 miles in 
24 hours. 

It is evident that the primary currents, as well as those 
derived from them, must be subject to periodical variations 
of intensity of six months' duration, because of the melting 
of the ice at each pole alternately. 

The westerly tendency of the equatorial current in the 
Atlantic is checked by the continent of America, which 
stretches directly across its course ; so that about the 10th 
parallel of south latitude it is divided by the coast of Brazil 
into two branches, one of which runs south and the other 
north-west. The latter rushes along the coast of Brazil with 



166 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

such force and depth that it is neither deflected by the power- 
ful stream of the river Amazons nor that of the Orinoco. 
Though much weakened in passing among the West Indian 
islands, it acquires new strength and the high tempera- 
ture of 86° of Fahrenheit in the Caribbean Sea. From 
thence, after sweeping round the Gulf of Mexico, it flows 
through the State of Florida and along the North American 
coast to Newfoundland : it is there deflected eastward by 
the diminished velocity of rotation, and also by a current 
from Bafl^n's Bay, so that it proceeds to the Azores. From 
thence it bends southward, and rejoins the equatorial cur- 
rent, having formed a circuit of 3800 miles with various 
velocity and a breadth of from 50 to 250 miles, leaving a 
vast loop or space of water nearly stagnant in its centre, 
which is thickly covered with sea-weed. The bodies of 
men, animals, and plants of unknown appearance, brought 
to the Azores by this stream, suggested to Columbus the idea 
of land beyond the Western Ocean, and thus led to his dis- 
covery of America. The Gulf Stream is more salt, warmer, 
and of a d^eeper blue than the rest of the ocean, till it reaches 
Newfoundland, where it becomes turbid from the shallow- 
ness of that part of the sea. Its greatest velocity is 78 miles 
a-day soon after leaving the Florida Strait, and its greatest 
breath is 120 miles, though the warm water spreads over 
the surface of the ocean to a much greater extent. An im- 
portant branch leaves this current near Newfoundland, set- 
ting towards Britain and Norway, which is again subdivided 
into many branches, whose origin is recognised by their 
greater warmth, even at the edge of perpetual ice in the 
Polar Ocean, while they tend in some degree, by their super- 
ficial direction, to prevent the ice from spreading over the 
North Sea ; and in consequence of some of these branches 
the Spitzbergen Sea is 6° or 1° warmer at the depth of 200 
fathoms than it is at the surface. The other branch of the 
equatorial stream, after setting southward along the coast of 
Brazil, becomes insensible before reaching the Straits of 
Magellan. 

In the Pacific Ocean a current comes from the south pole 
along the shores of Chili and Peru to Mexico, having in 
some seasons a temperature 24° below that of the Equatorial 
Sea. From Mexico, aided by the equatorial current of the 
Great Ocean, it crosses the Pacific with so strong a stream, 



THE OCEAN : ITS CURRENTS. 167 

that ships passing from Acapulco to Manilla rarely hare 
occasion to set their sails. Branches flow on each side of 
Australia, which unite and run through the Bay of Bengal 
to the extremity of the Indian peninsula ; one part then 
strikes across the ocean, another and greater flows through 
the Mozambique Channel : these currents then unite in a 
stream 100 miles broad, and the greater part, called the 
Lagullus Current, doubles the Cape of Good Hope, and 
rushes down the coast of Africa, till it joins the equatorial 
current of the Atlantic. These oceanic streams exceed all 
the rivers in the world in breadth and depth, as well as 
length. The equatorial current in the Atlantic is 160 miles 
broad off the coast of Africa, but towards its mid-course, 
across the Atlantic, its width becomes nearly equal to the 
whole length of Great Britain ; but as it then sends off" a 
branch to the N.W., it is diminished to 200 miles before 
reaching the coast of Brazil, The depth of this great stream 
is unknown, but the Brazilian branch must be very profound, 
since it is not deflected by the river La Plata, which crosses 
it with so strong a current that its fresh muddy waters are 
perceptible -500 miles from its mouth. When currents pass 
over banks and shoals, the colder water rises to the surface, 
and gives warnincr of the danger. 

The action of these oceanic rivers has been very great on 
the eastern sides of both continents, where they have scooped 
out bays and gulfs, and torn off many islands from the land: 
indeed, the whole earth bears the marks of a great current 
rushing with violence from the east. 

Under-currents are supposed to flow in many places in a 
direction opposite to the set of the water on the surface, but 
of these little is known. In summer, the great north polar 
current coming along the coast of Greenland and Labrador, 
together with the current from Davis's Straits, brings icebergs 
to the margin of the Gulf Stream and disappear. Probably 
from their density they become under-currents which pass to 
lower latitudes. Counter-currents on the surface are of such 
frequent occurrence that there is scarcely a strait joining two 
seas that does not furnish an example — a current running in 
along one shore, and a counter-current running out along 
the other. 

Periodical currents are frequent in the eastern seas : one 
flows into the Red Sea from October to May, and out of it 



168 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

from May to October ; in the Persian Gulf this order is re- 
versed. In the Indian Ocean and China Sea the waters are 
driven alternately backwards and forwards by the monsoons. 
It is the south-westerly monsoon that causes inundations in 
the Ganges and a tremendous surf on the coast of Coro- 
mandel. The tides also produce periodical currents on the 
coasts and in straits, the water running in one direction 
during the flood, and the contrary way in the ebb. The 
Roost of Sumbury, at the southern promontory of Zetland, 
runs at the rate of 15 miles an hour; indeed the strongest 
tidal currents known are among the Orkney and Zetland 
islands ; their great velocity arises from local circumstances. 
Currents in the wide ocean move at the rate of from one to 
three miles an hour, and the velocity is less at the margin 
and bottom of the stream from friction. 

Whirlpools are produced by opposing winds and tides: 
the whirlpool of Maelstrom, on the coast of Norway, is occa- 
sioned by the meeting of tidal currents round the islands of 
Logodon and Maskoe ; it is a mile and a half in diameter, 
and so violent that its roar is heard at the distance of several 
leagues. 

Although, with winds, tides, and currents, it might seem 
that the ocean is ever in motion, yet in the equatorial 
regions, far from land, dead calms prevail ; the sea is of 
the most perfect stillness day after day, rarely does a shower 
fall, thunder is almost never heard, and the winds are at 
rest. The sea partakes of the universal quiet, and heaves 
its low flat waves in noiseless and regular periods, as if 
nature were asleep. 

Salt water is a bad conductor of heat, therefore the tem- 
perature of the ocean is less liable to sudden changes than 
the atmosphere : the influence of the season is imperceptible 
at the depth of 300 feet; and as the light probably does 
not penetrate lower than 700 feet, the heat of the sun cannot 
affect the bottom of a deep sea. It has been established 
beyond a doubt by Kotzebue and Sir James Ross, that 
throughout the whole of the deep ocean the water has an 
invariable temperature of about 39° 5' of Fahrenheit at a 
certain depth depending on the latitude. At the equator the 
stratum of invariable temperature is at the depth of 7200 
feet ; from thence it gradually rises till it comes to the sur- 
face in S. lat. 56° 26', where the water has the temperature 



THE OCEAN I ITS TEMPERATURE. l69 

of 39° 5', at all depths ; it then gradually descends to S. 
lat. 70°, where it is 4500 feet below the surface. 

In going north from the equator the same law is observed : 
hence with regard to temperature there are three regions in 
the ocean, one equatorial and two polar. In the equatorial 
region the temperature of the water at the surface of the 
ocean is 80°, therefore higher than that of invariable tem- 
perature, while in the polar regions it is lower. Thus the 
surface of the stratum of constant temperature is a curve 
which begins at the depth of 4500 feet in the southern 
basin, from whence it gradually rises to the surface in S. 
lat. 56° 26' ; it then sweeps. down to 7200 feet at the equator, 
and rises up again to the surface in the corresponding 
northern latitude, from whence it descends again to a depth 
of 4500 feet in the northern basin. From these circum- 
stances Sir James Ross justly infers that the internal heat of 
the earth has no influence upon the mean temperature of the 
ocean. The temperature of the surface of the ocean de- 
creases from the equator to the poles. For ten degrees 
on each side of the line the maximum is 80° of Fahren- 
heit, and remarkably staple ; from thence the decrease to 
each tropic does not exceed 37°. The tropical tempera- 
ture M'ould be greater were it not for the currents, because 
the surface reflects much fewer of the sun's rays, that fall 
on it directly, than that in higher latitudes, where they fall 
obliquely. In the torrid zone the surface of the sea is about 
35° of Fahrenheit warmer than the air above it, because the 
polar winds, and the great evaporation which absorbs the 
heat, prevent equilibrium ; and as a great raas^ of water is 
slow in following the changes in the atmosphere, the vicis- 
situde of day and night has little influence, whereas in the 
temperate zones it is perceptible. 

The superficial temperature diminishes from the tropics 
as the latitude increases, more rapidly in the southern than 
in the northern hemisphere, till towards each pole the sea 
becomes a solid mass of ice. In the Arctic Ocean the sur- 
face is at the freezing point even in summer, and during 
the eight winter months a continuous body of ice extends 
in every direction from the pole, filling the area of a circle 
of between 2000 and 4000 miles in diameter. The outline 
of this circle, though subject to partial variations, is found 
to be nearly similar at the same season of each succeeding 
15 



170 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

year, yet there are periodical changes in the polar ice, which 
are renewed after a series of years. The freezing process 
itself is a bar to the unlimited increase of the oceanic ice. 
Fresh water congeals at the temperature of 32° of Fahren- 
heit, but sea-water must be reduced to 28° 5' before it de- 
posits its salt and begins to freeze : the salt thus set free, 
and the heat given out, retard the process of congelation 
more and more below. 

The ice from the north pole comes so far south in winter 
as to render the coast of Newfoundland inaccessible : it 
envelops Greenland, sometimes even Iceland, and always 
invests Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. As the sun comes 
north the ice breaks up into enormous masses of what is 
called packed ice. It is remarkable that in a fine summer 
the ice suddenly clears away, and leaves an open channel 
of sea along the western coast of Spitzbergen from 60 to 
150 miles wide, extending to 80° or even 80|° N. lat. , probably 
owing to warm currents from low latitudes. In the year 
1806 Captain Scoresby forced his ship through 250 miles of 
packed ice, in imminent danger, until he reached the parallel 
of 81° 50', his nearest approach to the pole: the Frozen 
Ocean is rarely navigable so far. 

In the year 1827 Sir Edward Parry arrived at the latitude 
of 82° 45', which he accomplished by dragging a boat over 
fields of solid ice, but he was obliged to abandon the bold 
and hazardous attempt to reach the pole, because the current 
drifted the ice southward more rapidly than he could travel 
over it to the north. 

Floating fields of ice 20 or 30 miles in diameter are fre- 
quent in the Arctic Ocean ; sometimes they extend 100 
miles, so closely packed together that no opening is left 
between them ; their thickness, which varies from 10 to 40 
feet, is not seen, as there is at least two-thirds of the mass 
below water. Sometimes these fields, many thousand mil- 
lions of tons in weight, acquire a rotatory motion of great 
velocity, dashing against one another with a tremendous 
collision. Packed ice alw-ays has a tendency to drift south- 
wards, even in the calmest weather ; and in their progress 
the ice-fields are rent in pieces by the swell of the sea. It 
is computed that 20,000 square miles of drift ice are annually 
brought by the current along the coast of Greenland to Cape 
Farewell. In stormy weather the fields and streams of ice 



POLAR ICE. 171 

are covered with haze and spray from constant tremendous 
concussions ; yet our seamen, undismayed by the appalling 
danger, boldly steer their ships amidst this hideous and dis- 
cordant tumult. 

Huge icebergs are rolled from the glaciers which extend 
miles from the arctic lands into the sea, especially in Baffin's 
Bay, and are drifted southwards 2000 miles from their origin 
to melt in the Atlantic, where they cool the water sensibly 
for 40 or 50 miles around, and the air to a much greater 
distance. They vary from a few yards to miles in circum- 
ference, and rise hundreds of feet above the surface. Seven 
hundred such masses have been seen at once in the polar 
basin. When there is a swell the loose ice dashing against 
them raises the spray to their very summits; and if a large 
mass falls from them, they occasionally lose their equilibrium 
and roll over, causing a swell which breaks up the neigh- 
bouring field-ice : the commotion then spreads far and wide, 
and the uproar resounds for miles like thunder. 

Icebergs have the appearance of chalk-cliffs with a glit- 
tering surface and emerald-green fractures ; pools of water 
of azure-blue lie on their surface, or fall in cascades into 
the sea. The field-ice also, and the masses that are heaped 
up on its surface, are extremely beautiful from the vividness 
and contrast of their colouring. A peculiar blackness in 
the atmosphere indicates their position in a fog, and their 
place and character are shown at night by the reflection of 
the snow-light on the horizon. An experienced seaman 
can readily distinguish whether the ice is newly formed, 
heavy, compact, or open. The blink or snow-light of field- 
ice is the most lucid, and is tinged yellow ; of packed ice it 
is pure white : ice newly formed has a greyish blink ; and 
a deep yellow tint indicates snow on land. 

Icebergs come to a lower latitude by 10° from the south 
pole than from the north, and appear to be larger. One 
observed by Captain d'Urville was 13 miles long, with per- 
pendicular sides 100 feet high. They are less varied than 
those on the northern seas ; a tabular form is prevalent. 
The discovery ships under the command of Sir James Ross 
met with multitudes bounded by perpendicular cliffs on every 
side with flat surfaces from 100 to 180 feet high, sometimes 
several miles in circumference. On one occasion they fell in 
with a chain of stupendous bergs close to one another, ex- 



172 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

tending farther than the eye could reach even from the 
mast-head. Packed ice, too, is in immense quantities : 
these ships forced their way through a pack 1000 miles 
broad, often under the most appalling circumstances. It 
generally consists of smaller pieces than the packs in the 
comparatively tranquil North Polar seas, where they are 
often several miles in diameter, and where fields of ice 
extend beyond the extent of vision. The Antarctic Ocean, 
on the contrary, is almost always agitated ; there is a per- 
petual swell, and terrific storms are common, which break 
up the ice and render navigation perilous. The pieces are 
rarely a quarter of a mile in circumference, and generally 
much smaller. 

A more dreadful situation can hardly be imagined than 
that of ships beset during a tempest in a dense pack of ice 
in a dark night, thick fog and drifting snow, with the spray 
beating perpetually over the decks, and freezing instanta- 
neously. Sir James Ross's own words can alone give an 
idea of the terrors of one of the many gales which the two 
ships under his command encountered :" Soon after mid- 
night our ships were involved in an ocean of rolling frag- 
ments of ice, hard as floating rocks of granite, which were 
dashed against them by the waves with so much violence, 
that their masts quivered as if they would fall at every suc- 
cessive blow ; and the destruction of the ships seemed in- 
evitable from the tremendous shocks they received. In the 
early part of the storm the rudder of the ' Erebus' was so 
much damaged as to be no longer of any use ; and about 
the same time I was informed by signal that the ' Terror's' 
was completely destroyed, and nearly torn away from the 
stern-post. Hour passed away after hour without the least 
mitigation of the awful circumstances in which we were 
placed. The loud crashing noise of the straining and work- 
ing of the timber and decks, as they were driven against 
some of the heavier pieces of ice, which all the exertions of 
our people could not prevent, was sufficient to fill the stout- 
est heart, that was not supported by trust in Him who con- 
trols all events, with dismay; and I should commit an act 
of injustice to my companions if I did not express my admi- 
ration of their conduct on this trying occasion. Throughout 
a period of 28 hours, during any one of which there ap- 
peared to be very little hope that we should live to see an- 



INLAND SEAS. 173 

other, the coolness, steady obedience, and untiring exertions 
of each individual, were every way worthy of British sea- 
men. 

" The storm gained its height at 2 p.m., when the baro- 
meter stood at 28-40 inches, and after that time began to 
rise. Although we had been forced many miles deeper into 
the pack, we could not perceive that the swell had at all 
subsided, our ships still rolling and groaning amidst the 
heavy fragments of crushing bergs, over which the ocean 
rolled its mountainous waves, throwing huge masses one 
upon another, and then again burying them deep beneath 
its foaming waters, dashing and grinding, them together with 
fearful violence." 

For three successive years were these dangers encountered 
during this bold and hazardous enterprise. 

The ocean is one mass of water, which, entering into the 
interior of the continents, has formed seas and gulfs of great 
magnitude, which afford easy and rapid means of communi- 
cation, while they temper the climates of the widely expand- 
ing continents. 

The inland seas communicating with the Atlantic are 
larger, and penetrate more deeply into the continents, than 
those connected with the Great Ocean ; a circumstance that 
gives a coast of 48,000 miles to the former, while that of the 
Great Ocean is only 44,000. Most of these internal seas 
have extensive river domains, so that by inland navigation 
the Atlantic virtually enters into the deepest recesses of the 
land, brings remote regions into contact, and improves the 
condition of the less cultivated races of mankind by commer- 
cial intercourse with those that are more civilised. 

The Baltic, which occupies 125,000 square miles in the 
centre of Northern Europe, is one of the most important of 
the inland seas connected with the Atlantic ; and although 
inferior to the others in size, the drainage of more than a 
fifth of Europe flows into it. Only about a fourth part of 
the boundary of its enormous basin of 900,000 square miles 
is mountainous; and so many navigable rivers flow into it 
from the watershed of the great European plain, that its 
waters are one-fifth less salt than those of the Atlantic : it 
receives at least 250 streams. Its depth nowhere exceeds 
115 fathoms, and generally it is not more than 40 or 50. 
From that cause, together with its freshness and northern 
15* 



174 PHYSICAL GEOGKAPHY. 

latitude, the Baltic is frozen five months in the year. From 
the flatness of the greater part of the adjacent country, the 
climate of the Baltic is subject to influences coming from 
regions far beyond the limits of its river-basin. The winds 
from the Atlantic bring warmth and moisture, which, con- 
densed by the cold blasts from the Arctic plains, falls in rain 
in summer, and deep snow in winter, which also makes the 
sea more fresh. The tides are imperceptible ; but the waters 
of the Baltic occasionally rise more than three feet above 
their usual level from some unknown cause^possibly from 
oscillations in its bed, or from changes of atmospheric pres- 
sure. 

The Black Sea, which penetrates most deeply into the 
continent of all the seas in question, has, together with the 
Sea of Azow, an area of 190,000 square miles ; but it must 
at a remote period have been united with the Caspian Lake, 
and must have covered all the steppe of Astracan. It re- 
ceives some of the largest European rivers, and drains about 
950,000 square miles ; consequently its waters are brackish, 
and freeze on its northern shores in winter. 

Of all the branches of the Atlantic that enter deeply into 
the bosom of the land, the Mediterranean is the most beau- 
tiful and the largest, covering with its dark blue waters 
more than 760,000 square miles. Situate in a comparatively 
low latitude, exposed to the heat of the African deserts on 
the south, and sheltered on the north by the Alps, the eva- 
poration is excessive. Its temperature is 10° or 12° higher 
than that of the Atlantic. Although its own river domain is 
only 250,000 square miles, the constant current that sets 
into it through the Dardanelles brings a great part of the 
drainage of the Black Sea, so that it is really fed by the 
melted snow and rivers from the Caucasus, Asia Minor, 
Abyssinia, the Atlas, and the Alps. Yet the quantity of 
water that flows into the Mediterranean from the Atlantic by 
the central current in the Straits of Gibraltar exceeds that 
which goes out by the lateral ones. In consequence of the 
excessive evaporation, the water of the Mediterranean is 
four times as salt as that of the ocean. 

The Mediterranean is divided into two basins by a shal- 
low that runs from Cape Bon on the African coast to the 
Strait of Messina, on each side of which the water is ex- 
ceedingly deep, and said to be unfathomable in some parts. 



INLAND SEAS. 175 

This sea is not absolutely without tides ; in the Gulf of 
Venice they rise to three feet, and at the Great Syrte to five at 
new and full moon ; but in most other places they are scarcely 
perceptible. The surface is traversed by various currents ; 
two of which, opposing one another, occasion the celebrated 
whirlpool of Charybdis, whose terrors were much dimi- 
nished by the earthquake of 1783. Its bed is subject to 
violent volcanic paroxysms ; and its surface is studded with 
islands of all sizes, from the magnificent kingdom of Sicily 
to mere barren rocks ; some actively volcanic, others of vol- 
canic formation, and many of the secondary geological 
period. 

Various parts of its coasts are in a state of great insta- 
bility ; in some places they have sunk down and risen again 
more than once within historical record. 

Far to the north the Atlantic penetrates the American con- 
tinent by Davis's Straits, and spreads out into Baffin's Bay, 
twice the size of the Baltic, very deep, and subject to all the 
rigours of an arctic winter — the very storehouse of Icebergs, 
the abode of the walrus and whale. Hudson's Bay, though 
without the Arctic circle, is but little less dreary. 

Very difTerent is the character of those vast seas where 
the Atlantic comes" cranking in" between the northern and 
southern continents of America. The surface of the sea in 
Baffin's Bay is seldom above the freezing point; here, on the 
contrary, it is always 89° of Fahrenheit ; while the Atlantic 
Ocean, in the same latitude, is not above 77° or 78°. Of 
that huge mass of water partially separated from the Atlantic 
by a long line of islands and banks, the Caribbean Sea is the 
larcrest. It is as long from east to west as the distance be- 
tween Great Britain and Newfoundland, and occupies a mil- 
lion of square miles. Its depth is very great in many places, 
and its water limpid. The Gulf of Mexico, fed by the Mis- 
sissippi, one of the greatest of rivers, is more than half its 
size, or about 625,000 square miles, so that the whole forms 
a sea of great magnitude. Its shores, and the shores of the 
numerous islands, are dangerous from shoals and coral reefs ; 
but the interior of these seas is not. The trade winds pre- 
vail there ; they are subject to severe northern gales ; and 
some parts are occasionally visited by tremendous hurricanes. 

The Pacific does not penetrate the land in the same man- 
ner that the Atlantic does the continent of Europe. The 



176 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Red Sea and Persian Gulf are joined to it by very narrow 
straits; but almost all the internal seas on the eastern coast 
of Asia, except the Yellow Sea, are great gulfs shut in by 
islands, like the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico : to 
which the China Sea (the Toung-Hai), the Sea of Japan, and 
that of Okhotsk, are perfectly analogous. 

The set of the great oceanic currents has scooped out and 
indented the southern and eastern coasts of the Asiatic con- 
tinent into enormous bays and gulfs, and has separated large 
portions of the land, which now remain as islands — a process 
which probably has been increased by the submarine fires 
extending along the eastern coast from the equator nearly to 
the Arctic circle. 

The perpetual motion of the ocean by winds, tides, and 
currents, is continually but slowly changing the form and po- 
sition of the land — steadily producing those vicissitudes on 
the surface of the earth to which it has been subject for ages, 
and to which it will assuredly be liable in all time to come. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



SPRINGS BASINS OF THE OCEAN ORIGIN, COURSE, AND FLOODS 

OF RIVERS — -HYDRAULIC SYSTEMS OF. EUROPE -AFRICAN 

rivers; THE NILE, NIGER, ETC. 

The vapour which rises invisibly from the land and water 
ascends in the atmosphere till it is condensed by the cold 
into clouds, which restore it again to the earth in the form 
of rain, hail, and snow: hence there is probably not a drop 
of water on the globe that has not been borne on the wings 
of the wind. Part of this moisture restored to the earth is 
reabsorbed by the air, part supplies the wants of animal and 
vegetable life, a portion is carried off by streams, and the 
remaining part percolates through porous soils till it arrives 
at a stratum impervious to water, where it accumulates in 
subterranean lakes often of great extent. The mountains 
receive the greatest portion of the aerial moisture, and, from 
the many alternations of permeable and impermeable strata 
they contain, a complete system of reservoirs is formed in 



SPRINGS. 



n1 



them, which, continually overflowing, form perennial springs 
at different elevations, that unite and run down their sides 
in incipient rivers. A great portion of the water at these 
high levels penetrates the earth till it comes to an imperme- 
able stratum below the plains, where it collects in a sheet, 
and is forced by hydrostatic pressure to rise in springs through 
cracks in the ground to the surface. In this manner the 
water which falls on hills and mountains is carried through 
highly inclined strata to great depths, and even below the 
bed of the ocean, in many parts of which there are springs 
of fresh water. In boring artesian wells the water often 
rushes up with such impetuosity by the hydrostatic pressure 
as to form jets 40 or 50 feet high. In this operation several 
successive reservoirs have been met with : at St. Ouen, in 
France, five sheets of water were found ; the water in the 
four first not being good, the operation was coritinued to a 
greater depth. It consists merely in boring a hole of small 
diameter, and lining it with a tube. It rarely happens that 
water may not be procured in this way ; and as the substra- 
tum in many parts of deserts is an argillaceous marl, it is 
probable that artesian wells might be bored with success. ' 

A spring will be intermittent when it issues from an open- 
ing in the side of a reservoir fed from above if the supply be 
not equal to the waste, for the water will sink below the 
opening, and the spring will stop till the reservoir is reple- 
nished. Few springs give the same quantity of water at all 
times ; they also vary much in the quantity of foreign matter 
they contain. Mountain springs are generally very pure ; 
the carbonic acid gas almost always found in them goes into 
the atmosphere, and their earthy matter is deposited as they 
run along, so that river- water from such sources is soft, while 
wells and springs in the plains are hard and more or less 
mineral. 

The water of springs takes its temperature from that of the 
strata through which it passes. Mountain springs are cold, 
but, if the water has penetrated deep into the earth, it ac- 
quires a temperature depending on that circumstance. 

The temperature of the surface of the earth varies with the 
seasons to a certain depth, where it becomes permanent and 
equal to the mean annual temperature of the air above. It 
is evident that the depth at which this stratum of invariable 
temperature lies must vary with the latitude. At the equator 



178 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the effect of the seasons is imperceptible at the depth of a foot 
below the surface ; between the parallels of 40° and 52° the 
temperature of the ground in Europe is constant at the depth 
of from 55 to 60 feet; and in the high Arctic regions the soil 
is perpetually frozen a foot below the surface. Now, in every 
part of the world where experiments have been made, the 
temperature of the earth increases with the depth below the 
constant stratum at the rate of 1° of Fahrenheit for every 50 
or 60 feet of perpendicular depth : hence, should the increase 
continue to follow the same ratio, even granite must be in 
fusion at little more than five miles below the surface. In 
Siberia the stratum of frozen earth is some hundred feet thick, 
but below that the increase of heat with the depth is three 
times as rapid as in Europe. The temperature of springs 
must therefore depend on the depth to which the water has 
penetrated before it has been forced to the surface either by 
the hydraulic pressure of water at higher levels or by steam. 
If it never goes below the stratum of invariable temperature, 
the heat of the spring will vary with the seasons more or less 
according to the depth below the surface ; should the water 
come from the constant stratum itself, its temperature will 
be invariable ; and if from below it, the heat will be in pro- 
portion to the depth to which it has penetrated. Thus there 
may be hot and even boiling springs hundreds of miles dis- 
tant from volcanic action and volcanic strata, of which there 
are many examples, though they are more frequent in vol- 
canic countries and those subject to earthquakes. The tem- 
perature of hot springs is very constant, and that of boiling 
springs has remained unchanged for ages: shocks of earth- 
quakes sometimes affect their temperature, and have even 
stopped them altogether. Jets of steam of high tension are 
frequent in volcanic countries, as in Iceland. 

Both hot and cold water dissolves and combines with many 
of the mineral substances it meets with in the earth, and 
comes to the surface from great depths as medicinal springs, 
containing various ingredients. So numerous are they that 
in the Austrian dominions alone there are 1500, and few 
countries of any extent are destitute of them. They contain 
sulphuric and carbonic acids, sulphur, iron, magnesia, and 
other matters. Boiling springs deposit silex, as in Iceland, 
Italy, and in the Azores; and others of lower temperature 
deposit carbonate and sulphate of lime in enormous quanti- 



RIVERS. 179 

ties all over the world. Springs of pure brine are very rare ; 
those in Cheshire are rich in salt, and have flowed unchanged 
1000 years, a proof of the tranquil state of that part of the 
globe. Many substances that lie beyond our reach are 
brought to the surface by springs, as naphtha, petroleum, and 
borax; petroleum is particularly abundant in Persia, and 
numberless springs and lakes of it surround some parts of the 
Caspian Sea. It is found in immense quantities in various 
parts of the world. 

RIVERS. 

Rivers have had a greater influence in the location and 
fortunes of the human race than almost any other physical 
cause ; and since their velocity has been overcome by 
steam navigation, they have become the highway of the 
nations. 

They frequently rise in lakes which they unite with the 
sea ; in other instances they spring from small elevations in 
the plains, from perennial sources in the mountains, alpine 
lakes, melted snow, and glaciers, but the everlasting store- 
houses of the mightiest floods are the ice-clad mountains of 
table-land. 

Rivers are constantly increased, in descending the moun- 
tains and traversing the plains, by tributaries, till at last 
they flow into the ocean, their ultimate destination and 
remote origin. " All rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is 
not full," because it gives in evaporation an equivalent for 
what it receives. 

The Atlantic, the Arctic, and the Pacific Oceans, are 
directly or indirectly the recipients of all the rivers, therefore 
their basins are bounded by the principal watersheds of the 
continents : for the basin of a sea or ocean does not mean 
only the bed actually occupied by ihe water, but compre- 
hends also all the land drained by the rivers which fall into 
it, and is bounded by an imaginary line passing through all 
their sources. These lines generally run through the elevated 
parts of a country that divide the streams which flow in one 
direction from those that flow in another. But the water- 
shed does not coincide in all cases with mountain-crests of 
great elevation, as the mere convexity of a plain is often 
sufficient to throw the streams into different directions. 



180 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

None of the European rivers flowing directly into the 
Atlantic exceed the 4th or 5th magnitude, except the Rhine ; 
the rest of the principal streams come to it indirectly through 
the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean. It 
nevertheless drains nearly half of the old continent, and 
almost all the new, because the Andes and Rocky Moun- 
tains, which form the watershed of the American continent, 
lie along its western side, and the rivers which rise on the 
western slope of the Alleghanies are tributaries to the Mis- 
sissippi, whicrh comes indiiectly into the Atlantic by the 
Gulf of Mexico. 

The Arctic Ocean drains the high northern latitudes of 
America, and receives those magnificent Siberian rivers, that 
originate in the Altai" range from the steppe of the Kerghis 
to the extremity of Kamtschatka, as well as the very inferior 
streams of North European Russia. The running waters of 
the rest of the world merge in the Pacific. The Caspian 
and Lake of Aral are mere lakes, which receive rivers but 
emit none. 

Mountain-torrents gradually lose velocity in their descent 
to the low lands by friction, and when they enter the plains 
their course becomes still more gentle, their beds smoother, 
and their depth greater. A slope of one foot in 200 pre- 
vents a river from being navigable, and a greater inclination 
forms a rapid or a cataract. The speed, however, does not 
depend upon the slope alone, but also upon the height of 
the source of the river, and the pressure of the body of 
water in the upper part of its course ; consequently, under 
the same circumstances, large rivers run faster than small, 
but in each individual stream the velocity is perpetually 
varying with the form of the banks, the winding of the course, 
and the changes in the width of the channel. The Rhone, 
one of the most rapid European rivers, has a declivity of 
one foot in 2620, and flows at the rate of 120 feet in a 
minute ; the sluggish rivers in Flanders have only half that 
velocity. The Danube, the Tigris, and Indus are among 
the most rapid of the large rivers. 

When one river falls into another, the depth and velocity 
are increased, but not always proportionally to the width of 
the channel, which sometimes even becomes less, as at the 
junction of the Ohio with the Mississippi. When the angle 
of junction is very obtuse, and the velocity of the tributary 



FLOODS OF RIVERS. 181 

stream great, it sometimes forces the water of its primary 
to recede a short distance. The Arve, swollen by a freshet, 
occasionally drives the water of the Rhone back into the 
Lake of Geneva ; and it once happened that the force was 
so great as to make the mill-wheels revolve in a contrary 
direction. 

Instances have occurred of rivers suddenly stopping in 
their course for some hours, and leaving their channels dry. 
On the 26th of November, 1838, the water failed so com- 
pletely in the Clyde, Nith, and Tiviot, that the mills were 
stopped eight hours in the lower part of their streams. The 
cause was the coincidence of a gale of wind and a strong 
frost, which congealed the water near their sources. Exactly 
the contrary happens in the Siberian rivers, which flow from 
south to north over so many hundreds of miles ; the upper 
parts are thawed, while the lower are still frozen, and the 
water, not finding an outlet, inundates the country. 

The alluvial soil carried down by streams is gradually 
deposited as their velocity diminishes ; and if they are sub- 
ject to inundations, and the coast flat, it forms deltas at their 
mouths. There they generally divide into two branches, 
which often join again, or are united by transverse channels, 
so that a labyrinth of streams and islands is formed. Deltas 
are sometimes found in the interior of the continents, at the 
junction of rivers, exactly similar to those on the ocean, 
though less extensive. 

Tides flow up rivers to a great distance, and to a height 
far above the level of the sea. The tide is perceptible in 
the river of the Amazons 576 miles from its mouth, and it 
ascends 255 miles in the Orinoco. 

In the temperate zones rivers are subject to floods from 
autumnal rains and the melting of the snow, especially on 
mountain-ranges. The Po, for example, spreads desolation 
far and wide over the plains of Lombardy ; but these tor- 
rents are as variable in their recurrence and extent as the 
climate which produces them. The inundations of the 
rivers in the torrid zone, on the contrary, occur with that 
regularity peculiar to a region in which meteoric phenomena 
are uniform in all their changes. These floods are due to 
the periodical rains which, in tropical countries, follow the 
cessation of the trade- winds after the equinox of spring and 
at the turn of the monsoons, and are thus dependent on the 
16 



J 82 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

declination of the sun, the immediate cause of all these 
variations. The melting of the snow, no doubt, adds greatly 
to the floods of the tropical rivers which rise in the high 
mountain-chains, but it is only an accessory circumstance ; 
for although the snow-water from the Himalaya swells the 
streams considerably before the rains begin, yet the principal 
effect is owing to the latter, as the southern face of the 
Himalaya is not beyond the influence of the monsoon, and 
the consequent periodical rains, which besides prevail all 
over the plains of India traversed by the great rivers and 
their tributaries. 

Under like circumstancgs, the floods of rivers, whose 
sources have the same tropical latitude, take place at the 
same season ; but the periods of the inundations of rivers on 
one side of the equator are exactly the contrary of what they 
are in rivers on the other side of it, on account of the de- 
clination of the sun. The flood in the Orinoco is at its 
greatest height in tlie month of August, while that of the 
river of the Amazons, south of the equinoctial line, is at its 
greatest elevation in March.* The commencement and end 
of the annual inundations in each river depend upon the 
mean time of the beginning, and on the duration of the rains 
in the latitudes traversed by its affluents. The periods of 
the floods of such rivers as run towards the equator are dif- 
ferent from those flowing in an opposite direction ; and as 
the swell requires time to travel, it happens at regular but 
different periods in various parts of the same river, if very 
long. The height to which the wafer rises in the annual 
floods depends upon the nature of the country, but it is 
wonderfully constant in each individual river where the 
course is long ; for the inequalities in the quantity of rain 
in a district drained by any of its affluents is imperceptible 
in the general flood, and thus the quantity of water carried 
down is a measure of the mean humidity of the whole 
country comprised in its basin from year to year. By the 
admirable arrangement of these periodical inundations, the 
fresh soil of the mountains, borne down by the water, en- 
riches countries, far remote from their source. The Moun- 
tains of the Moon, and of Abyssinia, have fertilized the 
banks of the Nile through a distance of 2500 miles for 
thousands of years. 

* Baron Humboldt's Personal JNarrative. 



BIFURCATION OF RIVERS. 183 

When rivers rise in mountains, water communication be- 
tween tiiem in the upper parts of their course is impossible; 
but when they descend to the plains, or rise in the low lands, 
the boundaries between the countries drained by them be- 
come low, and the different systems may be united by canals. 
It sometimes happens, in extensive and very level plains, 
that the tributaries of the principal streams either unite or are 
connected by a natural canal, by v^hich a communication is 
formed between the two basins — a circumstance advantageous 
to the navigation and commerce of both, especially where 
the junction takes place far inland, as in the Orinoco and 
Amazons, in the interior of South America. The Rio Negro, 
one of the largest affluents of the latter, is united to the Upper 
Orinoco, in the plains of Esmeralda, by the Cassiquiare — -a 
stream as large as the Rhine, with a velocity of 12 feet in a 
second. Baron Humboldt observes that the Orinoco sending 
a branch to the Amazons is, with regard to distance, as if the 
Rhine should send one to the Seine or Loire. At some fu- 
ture period this junction will be of great importance. These 
bifurcations are frequent in the deltas of rivers, but very rare 
in the interior of continents. The Mahomuddy and Gada- 
very,in Hindostan, seem to have something of the kind, and 
there are several instances in the great rivers of the Indo- 
Chinese peninsula. 

The hydraulic system of Europe is eminently favourable 
to inland navigation, small as the rivers are in comparison 
with those in other parts of the world ; but the flatness of the 
great plain, and the lowness of its watershed, are very favour- 
able to the construction of canals. In the west, however, 
the Alps and German mountains divide the waters that flow 
to the Atlantic on one side, and to the Mediterranean and 
the Black Sea on the other; but in the eastern parts of Europe 
the division of the waters is merely a more elevated ridge of 
the plain itself, for in all plains such undulations exist, though 
often imperceptible to the eye. This watershed begins on 
the northern declivity of the Carpathian Mountains, about 
the 23d meridian, on a low range of hills running between 
the sources of the Dnieper and the tributaries of the Vistula, 
from whence it winds in a tortuous course along the plain to 
the Valday table-land, which is its highest point, 1200 feet 
above the sea. It then declines northw^ard towards Onega, 
about the 60th parallel, and lastly turns in a very serpentine 



184 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

line to the sources of the Kama, in the Ural Mountains, near 
the 6 2d degree of north latitude. The waters north of this line 
run into the Baltic and White Sea, and on the south of it 
into the Black Sea and the Caspian. 

Thus Europe is divided into two principal hydraulic sys- 
tems ; but since the basin of a river comprehends all the 
plains and valleys drained by it and its tributaries, from its 
source to the sea, each country' is subdivided into as many 
natural divisions or basins as it has primary rivers, and these 
generally comprise all the rich and habitable parts of the 
earth, and are the principal centres of civilization, or are ca- 
pable of becoming so. 

The streams to the north of the general watershed are very 
numerous; those to the south are of greater magnitude. The 
systems of the Volga and Danube are the most extensive in 
Europe: the former has a basin comprising 640,000 square 
miles, and is navigable throughout the greater part of its 
course of 1900 miles. 

The Danube drains 300,000 square miles, and has 60 navi- 
gable tributaries. It rises in the Black Forest at an eleva- 
tion of 3000 feet above the level of the sea, so that it has 
considerable velocity, which, as well as rocks and rapids, 
impede its navigation in many places; but it is navigable 
downwards, through Austria, tor 600 miles to New OrsoA'a, 
from whence it flows in a gentle current to the Black Sea. 
The commercial importance of these two rivers is much in- 
creased by their flowing into inland seas. By canals between 
the Volga and the rivers north of the watershed, the Baltic 
and White Sea are connected with the Black Sea and the 
Caspian, and the Baltic and Black Sea are also connected 
by a canal between the Don and the Dnieper. Altogether 
the water system of Russia is the most extensive in Europe. 

The whole of Holland is a collection of deltoid islands, 
formed by the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt ; a struc- 
ture very favourable to commerce, and has facilitated an ex- 
tensive internal navigation. The Mediterranean is already 
connected with the North Sea by the junction canal of the 
Rhone and the Rhine, and this noble system, extended over 
the whole of France by 7591 miles of canals, has conduced 
mainly to the improved state of that great country. 

Many navigable streams rise in the Spanish mountains: 
of these the Tagus has depth enough for the largest ships. 



HYDRAULIC SYSTEM OF EUROPE. 185 

In point of magnitude, however, many are of the inferior 
orders, but canals have rendered them beneficial to the coun- 
try. Italy is less fortunate in her rivers, which only admit 
of vessels of small burthen. Those in the north are by much 
the most important, especially the Po and its tributaries, 
which, by steam-boats, connect Venice and Milan with va- 
rious fertile provinces of central Italy; but whatever advan- 
tages nature has afforded to the Italian states have been im- 
proved by able engineers, both in ancient and modern times. 
The application of the science of hydraulics to rivers took 
its rise in northern Italy, which has been carried to such per- 
fection in some points that China is the only country which 
can vie with it in the practice of irrigation. The lock on 
canals was in use in Lombardy as early as the 13th cen- 
tury, and in the end of the 14th it was applied to two canals 
which unite the Ticino to the Adda, by that great artist and 
philosopher, Leonardo da Vinci : about the same time he in- 
troduced the use of the lock into France. 

Various circumstances combine to make the British rivers 
more useful than many others of greater magnitude. The 
larger streams are not encumbered with rocks or rapids ; they 
all run into branches of the Atlantic; the tides flow up their 
channels to a considerable distance ; and above all, though 
short in their course, they end in wide gulfs, capable of con- 
taining whole navies — a circumstance that gives an import- 
ance to streams otherwise utterly insignificant when com- 
pared either with the great rivers of the old or new continent. 
The Thames, whose basin is only 5027 square miles, and 
whose length is but 240 miles, of which however 204 are 
navigable, spreads its influence over the remotest parts of the 
earth ; its depth is sufficient to admit large vessels even up 
to London, and throughout its navigable course a continued 
forest of masts display the flags of every nation ; its banks, 
which are in a state of perfect cultivation, are the seat of the 
highest civilization, moral and political. Local circumstances 
have undoubtedly been favourable to this superior develop- 
ment, but the earnest and energetic temperament of the Saxon 
race has rendered the advantages of their position available. 
The same may be said of other rivers in the British islands, 
vying in commercial activity with the Thames. There are 
2789 miles of canal in Britain, and, including rivers, 5430 
miles of inland navigation, which, in comparison with the size 
16* 



186 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

of the country, is very great; it is even said that no part of Eng- 
land is more than 15 miles distant from water communication. 
On the whole, Europe is fortunate with regard to its water 
systems, and its inhabitants are for the most part alive to the 
bounties which Providence has bestowed. 



AFRICAN RIVERS. 

In Africa the tropical climate and the extremes of aridity 
and moisture give a totally different character to its rivers. 
The most southerly part is comparatively destitute of them, 
and those that do exist are of inferior size, except the Orange 
River or Gareep, which has a long course on the table-land, 
but is nowhere navigable. There is a region of numerous 
rivers between the 18th degree of south latitude and the 
equator. They rise in two great watersheds on the table- 
land, from one of which they go to the Mozambique Channel 
and Indian Ocean, and from the other they flow to the At- 
lantic. The first is the range of the mountains of Nyassi, and 
the high lands that surround the south end of the great lake of 
that name, 350 miles from Mozv mbique. From thence all those 
streams come that flow over the rich plains of Mozambique 
andZanguebar. Of these theZambezeisprobably the greatest, 
and is said to have a course of 900 miles, navigable for 200 or 
300 from its mouth. Many otherrivers are navigable along this 
coast, where grain ripens all the year, yielding from 80 to 
150 fold, and every eastern production might be raised. 
The other watershed is a ridge of no great height, that runs 
from S.E. to N.W. on the table-land west of the dominions 
of the Zambeze. In it the numerous rivers originate which, 
after falling in cascades and rapids through the chains that 
border the table-land on the west, fertilize the luxuriant ma- 
ritime plains of Benguela, Congo, Angola, and Loango. The 
Zaire, or Congo, by much the largest of these, is navigable 
for 140 miles, where the ascent of the tide is stopped by cata- 
racts. The lower course of this river is five or six miles 
broad, full of islands, and 160 fatlioms deep at its mouth. 
Its upper course, like that of most of these rivers, is unknown ; 
the greater number are fordable on the table-land, but, from 
the abrupt descent of the high country to the maritime plains, 
none of them aflbrd access to the interior of south Africa. 



AFRICAN RIVERS. 187 

The mountainous edge of the table-land, with its terminal 
projections, Senegambia and Abyssinia, which separate the 
northern from the southern deserts, is the principal source of 
running water in Africa. Various rivers have their origin 
in these mountainous regions, of which the Nile and the Niger 
yield in size only to some of the great Asiatic and American 
rivers ; in importance and historical interest the Nile is in- 
ferior to none. 

Two large rivers unite their streams to form the Nile — the 
Bahr-el-Abiad or White Nile and the Bahr-el-Azrek or Blue 
Nile, but the sources and course of the White Nile are yet 
unknown : it is said to rise in Donga, in the Mountains of 
the Moon ; and the Blue Nile in Abyssinia, in the table-land 
of Dembea, in the mountains that separate Tigre from Am- 
liara, 10,000 feet above the sea. These two rivers converge 
during a long and often turbulent course, and unite at last 
in the plains of Senaar. 

The Tecazze, the largest affluent, issues from the moun- 
tains of Lasta, and is the chief river in the kingdom of Tigre. 
Its affluents fall in cascades from 100 to 150 feet high, and 
it takes its name of Tecazze or " The Terrible" from the im- 
petuosity with which it rushes through the chasms and over 
the precipices of the mountains. It joins the main stream 
in 17° 35' N. lat., from whence down to the Mediterranean, 
a distance of 1200 miles, the Nile does not receive a single 
brook. The first part of the Nile's course is interrupted by 
cataracts, from the geological structure of the Nubian desert, 
which consists of a succession of broad sterile terraces, se- 
parated by ranges of rocks running east and west. Over 
these the Nile runs in nine or ten cataracts, the last of which 
is at Syene, where it enters Egypt. Most of them are only 
rapids, where each successive fall of water is not a foot high. 
That they were higher at a former period has recently been 
ascertained by Dr. Lepsius, the very intelligent traveller sent 
by the King of Prussia at the head of a mission to explore 
that country. He found a series of inscriptions on the rocks 
in Senaar, marking the height of the Nile at different periods; 
and it appears from these that in that country the bed of the 
river had been 30 feet higher than it is now. 

Fifteen miles below Cairo, and 90 miles from the sea, 
the Nile is divided into two branches, of which, one, run- 
ning in a northerly direction, enters the Mediterranean be- 



188 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

low Rosetta ; the other, cutting Lower Egypt into two nearly 
equal parts, enters the sea above Damietta ; so that the delta 
between these two places has a sea-coast of 150 miles. 

The basin of the Nile, occupying an area of 500,000 square 
miles, has an uncommon form : it is wide in Ethiopia and 
Nubia ; but for the greater part of a winding course of 2750 
miles it is merely a verdant line of the softest beauty, sud- 
denly and strongly contrasted with the dreary waste of the 
Red desert. Extending from the equatorial far into the tem- 
perate zone, its aspect is less varied than might have been 
expected on account of the parched and showerless country 
it passes through. Nevertheless, from the great elevation 
of the origin of the river, the upper part has a perpetual 
spring, though within a few degrees of the equator. At the 
foot of the table-land of Abyssinia the country is covered 
with dense tropical jungles, while the rest of the valley is 
rich soil, the detritus of the mountains for thousands of years. 

As the mean velocity of the Nile, when not in flood, is 
about two miles and a half an hour, a particle of water would 
take twenty-two days and a half to descend from the junction 
of the Tecazze to the sea ; hence the retardation of the annual 
inundations of the Nile in its course is a peculiarity of this 
river, owing to some unknown cause towards its origin which 
affects the whole stream. In Abyssinia and Senaar the 
river begins to swell in April, yet the flood is not sensible at 
Cairo till towards the summer solstice ; it then continues to 
rise about a hundred days, and remains at its greatest height 
till the middle of October, when it begins to subside, and 
arrives at its lowest point in April and May. The height of 
the flood in Upper Egypt varies from 30 to 35 feet ; at Cairo 
it is 23, and in the northern part of the Delta only 4 feet. 

Annubis, or Sirius, the Dog-star, was worshipped by the 
Egyptians, from its supposed influence on the rising of the 
Nile. According to Champolion, their calendar commenced 
when the heliacal rising of that star coincided with the sum- 
mer solstice, the time at which the Nile began to swell at 
Cairo. Now this coincidence made the nearest approach to 
accuracy 3291 years before the Christian era ; and as the 
rising of the river still takes place precisely at the same time 
and in the same manner, it follows that the heat and periodical 
rains in Upper Ethiopia have not varied for 5000 years. In the 
time of Hipparchus the summer solstice was in the sign of 



THE NIGER. 189 

Leo ; and probably about that period the flowing of the foun- 
tains from the mouths of lions of basalt and granite was 
adopted, as emblematical of the pouring forth of the floods of 
the Nile. The emblem is still common in Rome, though its 
origin is probably forgotten ; and the signs of the zodiac have 
mov^ed backwards more than 30°. 

The two greatest African rivers, the Nile and the Niger, 
are dissimilar in almost every circumstance ; the Nile, dis- 
charging itself for ages into a sea, the centre of commerce 
and civilization, has been renowned by the earliest historians, 
sacred and profane, for the exuberant fertility of its banks 
and for the learning and wisdom of their inhabitants, who 
have left magnificent and imperishable monuments of their 
power and genius. It was for ages the seat of science, and 
by the Red Sea it had intercourse with the most highly cul- 
tivated nations of the East from time immemorial. The 
Niger, on the contrary, though its rival in magnitude, and 
running through a country glowing with all the brilliancy of 
tropical vegetation, has ever been inhabited by barbarous 
or semi-barbarous nations ; and its course till lately was 
little known, as its source still is. In early ages, before the 
pillars of Hercules had been passed, and indeed long after- 
wards, the Atlantic coast of Africa was an unknown region ; 
and thus the flowing of the Niger into that lonely ocean kept 
the natives in their original rude state. Such are the effects 
of local circumstances on the intellectual advancement of 
man. 

The sources of the Niger, Joliba, or Quorra,are supposed 
to be on the northern side of the Kong Mountains, in the 
country of Bambarra, more than 1600 feet above the level 
of the sea. From thence it goes north, and, after passing 
through Lake Debo, makes a wide circuit in the plains of 
Soudan to Timbuctoo, through eight or nine degrees of lati- 
tude ; then bending round, it again approaches the Kong 
Mountains, at the distance of 1000 miles in a straight line 
from its source ; and having threaded them, it flows across 
the low lands into the Gulf of Guinea, a course of 2300 
miles. In the plains of Soudan it receives many very large 
affluents from the high land of Senegambia on the west ; 
and the Chadda on the east — a navigable river larger than 
itself, the outlet of the great Lake Chad, which drains the 
lofty Komri, or Mountains of the Moon — falls into it a little 



190 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

below Fandah after a course of some hundred miles: thus 
it affords an uninterrupted water communication from the 
Atlantic to the heart of Africa. Long before leaving the 
plains of Soudan the Niger becomes a noble river, with a 
smooth stream, gliding at the rate of from five to eight miles 
an hour, varying in breadth from one to eight miles. Its 
banks are studded with densely populous towns and villages, 
groves of palm-trees and cultivated fields. 

This great river divides into three branches near the head 
of a delta which is equal in area to the whole of Ireland, 
intersected by navigable branches of the principal stream in 
every direction. The soil is rich mould, and the vegetation 
so rank that the trees seem to grow out of the water. The 
Nun, which is the principal or central branch, flows into 
the sea near Cape Formosa, and is that which the brothers 
Lander descended. There are, however, six rivers which 
run into the Bight of Benin, all communicating with the 
Niger, and with one another. The Old Calabar is the most 
eastern ; it rises in the high land of the Calbongos, and is 
united to the Niger by a natural canal. The Niger throughout 
its long winding course lies entirely within the tropic of 
Cancer, and is consequently subject to periodical inunda- 
tions, which reach their greatest height in August, about 40 
or 50 days after the summer solstice. The plains of Soudan 
are then covered with water and crowded by boats. These 
fertile regions are inaccessible to Europeans from the per- 
nicious climate, and dangerous from the savage condition of 
many of the tribes. 

The coast of Guinea west from the Niger is watered by 
many streams of no great magnitude from the Kong-Moun- 
tains. The table-land of Senegambia is the origin of the 
Rio Grande, the Gambia, the Senegal, and others of great 
size, and also many of an inferior order that fertilize the 
luxuriant maritime plains on the Atlantic. Their navigable 
course is cut short by a semicircular chain of mountains 
which forms the western boundary of the high land through 
which they thread their way in rapids and cataracts. The 
Gambia rises in Foula Toro, and after a course of about 
600 miles enters the Atlantic by many branches connected 
by natural channels, supposed at one time to be separate 
rivers. The Senegal, the largest river in this part of Africa, 
is 850 miles long. It receives many tributaries in the upper 



ASIATIC RIVERS. 191 

part of its course, and in the lower is full of islands. It 
drains two lakes, has several accessories, and is united to 
the basin of the Gambia by the river Neriho. 



CHAPTER XVir. 

ASIATIC RIVERS EUPHRATES AND TIGRIS RIVER SYSTEMS 

SOUTH OF THE HIMALAYA — CHINESE RIVERS — SIBERIAN 
RIVERS. " '^ 

The only river system of importance in western Asia is that 
of the Euphrates and Tigris. In the basin of these cele- 
brated streams, containing an area of 230,000 square miles, 
mounds of rubbish on a desolate plain are the only vestiges 
that remain of the great cities of Nineveh and Babylon. 
Innumerable ruins and inscriptions, also records of the glory 
of times less remote, have been discovered by adventurous 
travellers, and bear testimony to the truth of some of the 
most interesting pages x)f history. The Euphrates, and its 
affluent the Merad-Chai, supposed to be the stream forded 
as the Euphrates by the 10,000 Greeks in their retreat, rise 
in the heart of Armenia, and, after running 1800 miles on 
the table-land to 38° 41' of north latitude, they join the 
northern branch of the Euphrates, which rises in the Gheul 
Mountains, near Erzeroum. The whole river then descends 
in rapids through the Taurus chain, north of Rumkala, to 
the plains of Mesopotamia. 

The Tigris comes from Dearbeker, more to the east, and, 
after receiving auxiliaries from the high lands Kourdistan, 
it piercesthe Taurus Mountains at Mosul, and descends rapidly 
in a tortuous course to the same plains, where it is joined 
by many streams from the Lusistan Mountains, some of 
which are navigable, and may ultimately be of great com- 
mercial importance. The country through which they flow 
is extremely beautiful, and rich in corn, date-groves, and 
forest-trees. Near the city of Bagdad, the two rivers, ap- 
proaching, surround the plain of Mesopotamia, unite at 
Koona, and run 150 miles in one stream to the Persian 
Gulf, under the name of Chat-el- Arab. The banks of the 



192 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Tigris and Euphrates are quite desolate, alternately vast 
swamps or burnt up, and in many parts covered with brush- 
wood or grass. The remains of numerous canals, joining 
these great rivers and their affluents, show the former magni- 
tude of this most ancient water system. The floods of this 
river are very regular in their periods ; they begin in March, 
and attain their greatest height in June. 

The Persian Gulf may be navigated by steam all the year, 
the Euphrates only eight months ; it might however afford 
easy intercourse with eastern Asia, as it did in former times. 
The distance from Aleppo to Bombay by the Euphrates is 
2870 miles, of which 2700, from Bir, to Bombay, are by 
water ; in the time of Queen Elizabeth this was the com- 
mon route to India, and a fleet was then kept at Bir ex- 
pressly for that navigation. 

Five systems of rivers of the first magnitude descend 
from the central table-land of eastern Asia and its mountain 
barriers, all different in origin, direction, and character, 
while they convey to the ocean a greater volume of water 
than all the rivers of the rest of the continent conjointly. 
Of these, the Indus, the double system of the Ganges and 
Brahmapootra, and the group of parallel rivers in the Indo- 
Chinese peninsula, water the plains of southern Asia ; the 
great system of rivers that descend from the eastern terraces 
of the table-land irrigate the fertile lands of China ; and 
lastly, the Siberian rivers, not inferior to any in magnitude, 
carry the waters of the Altai to the Arctic Ocean. 

The hard-fought battles and splendid victories recently 
gained by British valour over a bold and well-disciplined 
foe have added to the historical interest of the Indus and 
its tributary streams, now the boundaries of our Asiatic 
territories. 

The sources of the Indus and Sutlej were only ascertained 
in 1812: the Ladak, the largest branch of the Indus, has its 
origin in the snowy mountains of Karakorum ; and the 
Shyook, which is the smaller stream, rises in the Kentese or 
Kangri range, a branch of the Himalaya, which extends 
along the table-land of Tibet, west of the sacred lake of 
Manasarora. These two streams join north-west of Ladak, 
and form the Indus ; the Sutlej, its principal tributary, springs 
from the sacred lake itself. Both are fed by streams of melted 
snow from the northern side of the Himalaya, and both flow 



THE INDUS. 393 

westward along the extensive longitudinal valleys of Tibet, 
The Sutlej breaks through the Himalaya about the 75th 
meridian, and traverses the whole breadth of the chain in 
frightful chasms and clefts in the rocks to the plains of the 
Punjab ; the Indus, after continuing its course on the table- 
land through several degrees of longitude farther, descends 
by the Hindoo Coosh, west of the valley of Cashmere, to 
the same plain. Three tributaries, the Jelum or Hydaspes, 
the Hydraotes, and the Chenab, all superior to the Rhone in 
size, flow from the southern face of the Himalaya, and with 
the Sutlej join the Indus before it reaches Mittum ; hence 
the name Punjab, " the plain of the five rivers," now one 
of our valuable possessions in the East. From Mittum to 
the ocean, the Indus, like the Nile, does not receive a single 
accessory, from the same cause— the sterility of the country 
through which it passes. The Cabul river, which rises near 
Guzni, but is joined by a larger affluent from the lofty plain 
of Pamere, flows along the edge of the Persian table-land, 
through picturesque and dangerous defiles, and forms the 
limit between eastern and western Asia. It then joins the 
Indus at the town of Attock, and is the only tributary of any 
magnitude that comes from the west. 

The Indus is not favourable to navigation: for 70 miles 
after it leaves the mountains the descent in a boat is dan- 
gerous, and it is nowhere navigable for steam-vessels of 
more than 30 inches draught of water ; yet, from the fertility 
of the Punjab, and the near approach of its basin to that of 
tha Ganges at the foot of the mountains, it must ultimately 
be a valuable acquisitioji, and the more especially because 
it commands the principal roads between Persia and India, 
one through Cabul and Peshawer to Attock, and the other 
from Herat through Candahar to the same place. The delta 
of the Indus, formerly celebrated for its cis'ilization, has 
long been a desert ; but from the vitality of the soil, and the 
change of political circumstances, it may again resume its 
pristine aspect. It is 60 miles long, and presents a face of 
120 miles to the sea at the Gulf of Oman, where the river 
empties itself by many mouths, of which only three or four 
are navigable : one only can be entered by vessels of 50 
tons, and all are liable to change. The tide ascends them 
with extraordinary rapidity for 75 miles, and so great is the 
quantity of mud carried by it and the absorbing violence of 
17 



194 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the eddies, that a vessel wrecked on the coast was buried 
in sand and mud in two- tides. The annual floods begin 
with the melting of the snow in the Himalaya in the end of 
April, come to their height in July, and end in September. 
The length of this river is 1500 miles, and it drains an area 
of 400,000 square miles. 

The second group of south Indian rivers, and one of the 
greatest, is the double system of the Ganges and Brahma- 
pootra. These two rivers, though wide apart at their sources, 
converge to a common delta, and constitute one of the most 
important groups on the globe. 

Mr. Alexander Elliot, of the Body Guard in Bengal, son 
of Admiral Elliot, with his friends, are the first who have 
accomplished the arduous expedition to the sources of the 
Ganges. The river flows at once in a very rapid stream 
not less than 40 yards across, from a huge cave in a perpen- 
dicular wall of ice at the distance of about three marches 
from the temple of Gungootree, to which the pilgrims resort. 
Mr. Elliot says, " The view from the glacier was perfectly 
amazing ; beautiful or magnificent is no word for it — it was 
really quite astonishing. If you can fancy a bird's-eye view 
of ail the mountains in the world in one cluster, and every 
one of them covered with snow, it would hardly give you 
an idea of the sight w^hich presented itself." 

Many streams from the southern face of the Himalaya 
unite at Hurdwar to form the great body of the river. It 
flows from thence in a south-easterly direction through the 
plains of Bengal, receiving in its course the tribute of 19 or 
20 rivers, of which 12 are larger than the Rhine. About 
220 miles in a direct line from the Bay of Bengal, into 
which the Ganges flows, the innumerable channels and 
branches into which it splits form an intricate maze over a 
delta twice as large as that of the Nile, 

The sources of the Brahmapootra, a river equal in volume 
to the Ganges, though not in length, are some hundreds of 
miles distant from those of the latter. They He to the north 
of the Birman empire, but whether they spring from the 
eastern extremity of the Himalaya or from some snow-clad 
branch of it is unknown. The upper course of the river 
among the lofty defiles of the mountains is completely zigzag, 
but soon after passing through the sacred pool of Brahma- 
Koond it enters the plains of Upper Assam, and receives 



THE GANGES AND BRAHMAPOOTRA. 196 

the name of Brahmapootra — " the offspring of Brahma ; 
the natives callit the Lahit, Sanscrit for "red river." 
In Upper Assam, through which it winds 500 miles and 
forms some very extensive channel islands, it receives six 
very considerable accessories, of which the origin is un- 
known, though some are supposed to come from the table- 
land of Tibet. They are only navigable in the plains, but 
vessels of considerable burthen ascend the parent stream as 
high as Sampura. Before it enters the plains of Bengal, 
below Goyalpara, the Brahmapootra runs with rapidity in 
great volume, and, after receiving the river of Bhotan and 
other streams, its branches unite with those of the Ganges 
about 40 miles from the coast, but the two rivers enter the 
sea by different mouths, though they sometimes approach 
within two miles. The length of the Brahmapootra is pro- 
bably 860 miles, so that it is 500 miles shorter than the- 
Ganges: the volume of water discharged by it during the 
dry season is about 146,888 cubic feet in a second ; the 
quantity discharged by the Ganges in the same time and 
under the same circumstances is only 80,000 cubic feet. 
In the perennial floods the quantity of water poured through 
the tributaries of the Brahmapootra from their snowy sources 
is incredible : the plains of Upper Assam are an entire sheet 
of water from the 15th of June to the 15th of September, 
and there is no communication but by elevated causeways 
eight or ten feet high : the two rivers with their branches 
lay the plain of Bengal under water for hundreds of miles 
annually. They begin first to swell from the melting of the 
snow on the mountains ; but before their inferior streams 
overflow from that cause, all the lower parts of Bengal adja- 
cent to the Ganges and Brahmapootra are under water, from 
the swelling of these rivers by the rains. The increase is 
arrested before the middle of August by the cessation of the 
rains in the mountains, though they continue to fall longer 
in the plains. The delta is traversed in every direction by 
arms of the rivers. The Hoogly branch, at all times navi- 
gable, passes Calcutta and Chandernagor ; and the Haurin^ 
gotta arm is also navigable, as well as the Ganges properly 
so called. The channels, however, are perpetually changing 
from the strength of the current and the prodigious quantity 
of matter washed from the high lands ; the Ganges alone 
carries to the sea 600,000 cubic feet of mud in a second, the 



196 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

effects of which are perceptible 60 miles from the coast. 
The elevation of the mountains, and indeed of the land gene- 
rally, must have been enormous, since it remains still so 
stupendous after ages of such degradation. The Sunder- 
bands, a congeries of innumerable river islands formed by 
the endless streams and narrow channels of the rivers, as 
well as by the indentations of arms of the sea, line the coast 
of Bengal for 180 miles — a wilderness of jungle and heavy 
timber. The united streams of the Ganges and Brahmapootra 
drain an area of 650,000 square miles, but there is scarcely 
a spot in Bengal more than 20 miles distant from a river 
navigable even in the dry season. 

These three great rivers of southern India do not differ 
more widely in their physical circumstances than in the 
races of men who inhabit their banks, yet from their posi- 
tion they seem formed to unite nations the most varied in 
their aspect and speech. The tributaries of the Ganges and 
Indus come so near to each other at the foot of the moun- 
tains, that a canal only two miles long would unite them, 
and thus an inland navigation from the Bay of Bengal to the 
Gulf of Oman might be established. 

An immense volume of water is poured in a series of 
nearly parallel rivers of great magnitude and strength 
through the Indo-Chinese peninsula into the ocean opposite 
the Sunda Archipelago. I'hey rise in those elevated regions 
at the south-eastern angle of the table-land of Tibet, the 
lofty but unknown provinces of the Chinese empire, and 
water the great valleys that extend nearly from north to 
south with perfect uniformity, between chains of mountains 
no less uniform, which spread out like a fan as they approach 
the sea. Scarcely any thing is known of the origin or upper 
parts of these rivers, and with a few exceptions almost as 
little of the lower. 

Their number amounts to six or seven, all large, though 
three surpass the rest — the Irriw^addy, which waters the 
Birman empire, and falls into the Bay of Bengal at the 
Gulf of Martaban ; the Meinam or river of Siara ; and the 
river of Cambodja, which flows through the empire of 
Annam : the two last go into the China Sea, 

The sources of the Irriwaddy are in the same chain of 
mountains with those of the Brahmapootra, more to the 
south. Its course is through countries hardly known to 



INDO-CHINESE RIVERS. 197 

Europeans, but it seems to be navigable by boats coming to 
the city of Amarapoora, south of v^^hich it enters the finest 
and richest plain of the empire, containing its four capital 
cities. There it receives two large affluents, one from the 
Chinese province of Yunnah, which flows into the Irriwaddy^ 
at the city of Ava, 446 miles from the sea, the highest point 
attained by the British force during the Birmese war. 

From Ava to its delta the Irriwaddy is a magnificent 
river, more than four miles broad in some places, but en- 
cumbered with channel islands. In this part of its course 
it receives its largest tributary, and forms in its delta one of 
the most extensive systems of internal navigation. The 
Rangoon is the only one of its 14 mouths that is always 
navigable, and in it the commerce of the empire is concen- 
trated. The internal communication is extended by the 
junction of the two most navigable deltoid branches with 
the rivers Salven and Pegu, by natural canals: that joining 
the former is 200 miles long ; the canal uniting the latter is 
only serviceable at high water. 

The Meinam, one of the largest Asiatic rivers, is less 
known than the Irriwaddy : it comes from the Chinese pro- 
vince of Yunnan and runs through the kingdom of Siam, 
which it cuts into several islands by many diverging branches, 
and enters the Gulf of Siam by three principal arms, the 
most easterly of which forms the harbour of Bangkok. It 
is joined to the Meinam Kong or Cambodja by the small river 
Anan-Myit. 

The river of Cambodja has the longest course of any in 
the peninsula ; it is supposed to be the Lang-thsang, which 
rises in the high land of K'ham, in eastern Asia, not far from 
the sources of the great Chinese river, the Yang-tsi-kiang. 
After traversing the elevated plain of Yunnan, where it is 
navigable, it rushes through the mountain barriers ; and on 
reaching a wider valley, about 300 miles from its mouth, it 
is joined to the Meinam by the natural canal of the Anan- 
Myit. More to the south it is said to split into branches 
which unite again. 

The ancient capital of Annan is situated on the Cambodja, 
about 150 miles from the sea: a little to the south its ex- 
tensive delta begins, projects far into the ocean, and is cut 
in all directions by arms of the river navigable during the 
floods ; three of its mouths are permanently so for large 
17* 



198 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

vessels up to the capital. The Sai-gon, more to the east, is 
much shorter than the river of Cambodja, though said to be 
1000 miles long ; but Europeans have not ascended higher 
than the town of Sai-gon. Near its mouth it sends off 
several branches to the eastern arm of the Cambodja. All 
rivers of this part of Asia are subject to periodical inunda- 
tions, which fertilize the plains at the expense of the moun- 
tains. 

The parallelism of the mountain-chains constitutes for- 
midable barriers between the upper basins of the Indo-Chi- 
nese rivers, and decided lines of separation between the 
inhabitants of the intervening valleys ; but this inconve- 
nience is in some degree compensated by the natural canals 
of junction and the extensive water communication towards 
the mouths of the rivers. 

" The Sons of the Ocean," a double system of collossal 
rivers which drain 1,400,000 square miles of the Chinese 
empire, rise in the two extensive and principal terraces on 
the eastern slope of the table-land of central Asia. The 
length of the Hoang-Ho is 2000 miles, that of the Yang-tsi- 
kang 2900. Though near at their beginning, they are 
widely separated north and south, as they proceed on their 
eastern course, by the mountain-chains that border the table- 
land ; but they again approach, and are not more than 100 
miles apart when they enter the Whang-Hai or Yellow Sea. 
They are united in central China by innumerable canals, 
and form the grandest and most extensive water system in 
existence. 

The Hoang-Ho brings down in one hour 2,000,000 cubic 
feet of earth, whence, like the Tiber of old, it is called the 
" Yellow" River. 

Strong tides from the Pacific go up these rivers 400 miles, 
and for the time prevent the descent of the fresh water, 
which forms large interior seas frequented by thousands of 
trading-vessels, and they irrigate the productive lands of 
central China, from time immemorial the most highly culti- 
vated and the most densely peopled region of the globe. 

Almost all the Chinese rivers of less note^ — and they are 
numerous — feed these giant streams, with the exception of 
the Ta-si-kiang, and the Pei-ho, or White River, which 
have their own basins. The former, rising to the east of 
the town of Yunnan, flows through the plains of Canton 



SIBERIAN RIVERS. 199 

eastward to the Gulf of Canton, into which it discharges 
itself, increased in its course by the Sekiang. 

The White River, rising in the mountains near the great 
wall, becomes navigable a few miles east of Pekin, unites 
with the Eu-ho, joins the great canal, and, as the tide 
ascends it for 80 miles, it is crowded with shipping. 

Four great rivers, the Amur, the Lena, the Yenessee, and 
the double system of the Irtish and Oby, not inferior in size 
to any rivers in Asia, carry off the waters that come from 
the Altai chain, and from the mountains and terraces on the 
northern declivity of the central table-land. Two of these, 
the Amur and Lena, rise in the Baikalian mountains, the 
source of more great rivers than any group of its size. The 
Amur, the sources of which are partly in the Russian domin- 
ions, though its course is chiefly in China, is 2000 miles 
long, including its windings, and has a basin of 853,000 
square miles. Almost all its accessories come from that 
part of the Baikalian group called the Yablonnoi Khrebit by 
the Russians, and Khing-Khan-Oola by the Chinese. The 
river Onon, which is the parent stream, has its origin in the 
Khentai Khan, a branch of the latter ; and though its course 
is through an uninhabited country, it is celebrated as being 
the birthplace and the scene of the exploits of Tshingis 
Khan. After passing through the lake of Dalai-nor, which 
is 210 miles in circumference, it takes the name of Argun, 
and forms the boundary between the Chinese and Russians 
for 400 miles : it is then joined by the Silka, where it 
assumes the Tunguse name of the Amur, or Great River ; 
the Mandchoos call it the Saghalia, or Black Water. It 
receives most of the unknown rivers that come from the 
mountain-slopes of the Great Gobi, and falls into the Pacific 
opposite to the island of Tarakai, after having traversed 
three degrees of latitude and thirty-three of longitude. 

The Lena, whose basin occupies 800,000 square miles, 
springs from mountains 20 miles west from the Lake of 
Baikal, and runs north-east through more than half its course 
to the Siberian town of Yakutzk, the coldest town on the 
face of the earth, receiving in its course the Witira and the 
Alekma, its two principal affluents ; the former from the 
Baikal Mountains, the latter from Stannovoi Khrebit, the 
most southerly part of the Aldan range. North of Yakutzk, 
about the 63d parallel of latitude, the Lena receives the 



200 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Aldan, its greatest tributary, which also comes from the 
Stannovoi Khrebit : it then goes to the Arctic Ocean, be- 
tween banks of frozen mud, prodigious masses of which are 
hurled down by the summer floods, and bring to view the 
bones of those huge animals of extinct species which at 
some remote period had found their nourishment in these 
desert plains. The length of the Lena including its wind- 
ings is 1900 miles. 

A difference in the pressure of the air has been observed 
on the banks of this river, on the shores of the sea of Ok- 
hotsk, and at Kamtschatka, which shows that in the dis- 
tance of five degrees of latitude there is an apparent differ- 
ence in the level of the sea amounting to 159 feet,* A 
similar phenomenon was observed by Captain Foster near 
Cape Horn, and by Sir James Ross throughout the South 
Polar Ocean. 

The Yenessei, a much larger river than the Lena, drains 
about 1,000,000 square miles, and is formed by the union 
of the Great and Little Kem. The former rises at the junc- 
tion of the Sayansk range with the Baikalian mountains to 
the north-west of Lake Kassagol ; the latter comes from the 
Egtag or Little Altai, in quite an opposite direction ; so that 
these two meet at nearly right angles, and take the name of 
Yenessei : it then crosses the Sayansk range in cataracts and 
rapids, entering the plains of Siberia below the town of 
Krasnagarsk. Many rivers join it in this part of its course, 
chiefly the Angora from the Lake Baikal ; but its greatest 
tributaries, the Upper and Lower Tungurka, both large 
rivers from the Baikalian mountains, join it lower down, the 
first to the south, the latter to the north of the town of Yeni- 
seisk, whence it runs north to the Icy Ocean, there forming 
a large gulf, its length measured along its bed being 2500 
miles. 

The Oby rises in the Lake of Toleskoi, " The Lake of 
Gold," in Great Tartary ; all the streams of the Lesser Altai 
unite to swell it and its great tributary the Irtish. The 
rivers which come from the northern declivity of the moun- 
tains go to the Oby, those from the western sides to the 
Irtish, which springs from numerous streams on the south- 
western declivity of the Little Altai, and runs westward into 

• M. Erman. 



SIBERIAN RIVERS. 201 

Lake Zainzan, 200 miles in circumference. Issuing from 
thence it takes a westerly course to the plain on the north of 
Semissalatinsk. In the plain it is joined by the Tobol, 
which crosses the steppe of the Kirghiz Cossacks from the 
Ural Mountains, and soon unites with the Oby : the joint 
stream then proceeds to the Arctic Ocean in 67° N. latitude. 
The Oby is 2000 miles long, and the basin of these two 
rivers occupy a third part of Siberia. 

Before the Oby leaves the mountains, at a distance of 
1200 miles from the Arctic Ocean, its surface has an abso- 
lute elevation of not more than 400 feet, and the Irtish, at 
the same distance, is only 72 feet higher, both are conse- 
quently sluggish. When the snow melts they cover the 
country like seas ; and as the inclination of the plains, in 
the middle and lower parts of their course, is not sufficient 
to carry off the water, those immense lakes and marshes are 
formed which characterize this portion of Siberia. 

The bed of Oby is very deep ; and there are no soundings 
at its mouth : hence the largest vessels might ascend at 
least to its junction with the Irtish. Its many affluents also 
might admit ships, did not the climate oppose an insurmount- 
able obstacle the greater part of the year. Indeed, all Sibe- 
rian rivers are frozen annually for many months, and even 
the ocean along the Arctic coasts is rarely disencumbered 
from ice ; consequently these vast rivers never can be im- 
portant as navigable streams ; but towards the mountains 
they afford water communication from the steppe of Issim to 
the Pacific. They abound in fish and waterfowl, for which 
the Siberian braves the extremest severity of the climate. 

Local circumstances have nowhere produced a greater dif- 
ference in the human race than in the basins of the great 
rivers north and south of the table-land of eastern Asia. The 
Indian, favoured by the finest climate, and a soil which pro- 
duces the luxuries of life, intersected with rivers navigable 
at all seasons, and affording easy communication with the 
surrounding nations, attained early a high degree of civiliza- 
tion ; while the Siberian and Samoide, doomed to contend 
with the rigours of the polar blasts in order to maintain mere 
existence, have never risen beyond the lowest grade of hu- 
manity: but custom softens even the rigour of this stern life, 
so that here also a share of happiness is enjoyed. 



202 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

RIVER SYSTEMS OF NORTH AMERICA RIVERS OF CENTRAL AME- 
RICA RIVERS OF SOUTH AMERICA, AND OF AUSTRALIA. 

North America is divided into four distinct water systems 
by the Rocky Mountains, the Alleghanies, and a table-land 
which contains the great lakes, and separates the rivers that 
flow into the Arctic Ocean from those that go to the Gulf of 
Mexico. This table-land is a level, nowhere more than 1200 
or 1500 feet above the surface of the sea, and is itself drained 
by the St. Lawrence and the rivers that flow into Hudson's 
Bay. The St. Lawrence rises in Lake Superior, and, after 
joining the five great lakes, runs north-east into the Atlantic, 
and ends in a wide estuary. It has a basin of 537,000 square 
miles, of which 149,000 are covered with water, exclusive 
of the many lesser lakes with which it is in communication. 

North of the watershed there is an endless and intricate 
labyrinth of lakes and rivers, almost all connected with one 
another. But the principal streams of these arctic lands are 
the Great Fish River, which flows north-east in a continued 
series of dangerous and ail-but impassable rapids to the Arctic 
Ocean at Melville Strait. The Copper-mine River, of much 
the same character, after traversing many lakes, enters the 
Icy Sea at George IV. 's Gulf; and the M'Kenzie, a stream 
of greater magnitude, formed by the confluence of the Peace 
River and the Athabasca from the Rocky Mountains, after 
flowing north over 16 degrees of latitude, enters the frozen 
ocean in the Esquimaux country somewhere beyond the arctic 
circle. All these rivers are frozen more than half the year, 
and the M'Kenzie, in consequence of its length and direction 
from south to north, is subject to floods like the Siberian 
rivers, because its lower course remains frozen for several 
hundred miles, long after the upper part is thawed, and the 
water, finding no outlet, flows over the ice and inundates 
the plains. 

South of the table-land the valley of the Mississippi ex- 
tends for 1000 miles, and the greatest of North American 



RIVERS OF NORTH AMERICA. 203 

rivers has its origin in the junction of streams from the small 
lakes Itaska and Ussawa, on the table-land, at no greater 
height than 1500 feet above the sea. Before their junction 
these streams frequently spread out into sheets of water, and 
the Mississippi does the same in the upper part of its course. 
This river flows from north to south through more degrees of 
latitude than any other, and receives so many tributaries of 
the higher orders, that it would be difficult even to name 
them. xVmong those that swell its volume from the Rocky 
Mountains, the Missouri, the Arkansas, and the Red River 
are the largest, each being in itself a mighty stream, receiv- 
ing tributaries without number. Before their junction the 
Missouri is a much superior stream, both in length and vo- 
lume, to the Mississippi, and has various affluents larger than 
the Rhine. It rises in about 44° N. lat., and runs partly in 
a longitudinal valley of the Rocky Mountains and partly at 
their foot, and drains the whole of the country on the right 
bank of the Mississippi, between the 49th and 40th parallels 
of north latitude. It falls in cataracts through the mountain 
regions, but in the plains it sometimes passes through dense 
forests and sometimes through large prairies, in all accom- 
plishing 3000 miles in a very tortuous and generally south- 
eastern direction, till it is confluent with the Mississippi near 
the town of St. Louis. Lower down the Mississippi is joined 
first by the Arkansas, 2000 miles long, with many accesso- 
ries, and then by the Red River, the former from the Rocky 
Mountains, but the latter, which rises in the table-land of 
New Mexico, is fed by streams from the Sierra dal Sacra- 
mento, and enters the main stream not far from the beginning 
of the delta which stretches in a long tongue of land into the 
Gulf of Mexico. 

The tributaries from the Rocky Mountains, though much 
longer, run through countries of less promise than those which 
are traversed by the Ohio and the other rivers that flow into 
the Mississippi on the east, which offer advantages unrivalled 
even in this wonderful country, only beginning to be deve- 
loped. The Ohio is formed by the union of the rivers Alle- 
ghany and Monongahela, the latter from the Laurel ridge of 
the Alleghany chain in Virginia, the former comes from 
sources near Lake Erie, and the two unite at Pittsburg, from 
whence the river winds for 948 miles through some of the 
finest States of the Union, till its junction with the Missis- 



204 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

sippi, having' received many accessories, six of which are 
navigable streams. There are some obstacles to navigation 
in the Ohio, but they have been avoided by canals. Other 
canals join both the Mississippi and its branches with Lake 
Erie, so that there is an internal water communication be- 
tween the St. Lawrence and the Gulf of Mexico. The whole 
length of the Mississippi is 3160 miles, but if the Missouri 
be considered the main stem, it is 4265, and the joint stream 
drains an area of about a million and a quarter of square miles. 
The breadth of the river nowhere corresponds with its length. 
At the confluence of the Missouri each river is half a mile 
wide, and after the junction of the Ohio it is not more. The 
depth is 168 feet where it enters the Gulf of Mexico at New 
Orleans. This great river is a rapid, desolating torrent 
loaded with mud: its violent floods, by the melting of the 
snow in the high latitudes, sweep away whole forests, by 
which the navigation is rendered very dangerous; and the 
trees, being matted together in masses many yards thick, are 
carried down by the spring floods, and deposited over the 
delta and Gulf of Mexico for hundreds of square miles. 

North America can boast of two other great water systems, 
one from the eastern versant of the AUeghanies, which flows 
into the Atlantic, and another from the western versant of 
the Rocky Mountains, which runs into the Pacific. 

All the streams that flow eastward through the United 
States to the Atlantic are short and comparatively small, but 
of the highest utility, because many of them, especially those 
to the north, end in gulfs of vast magnitude, and the whole 
are so united by canals, that few places are not accessible 
by water, one of the greatest advantages a country can pos- 
sess. There are at least 24 canals in the United States, the 
whole length of which is 3101 miles. 

Many of the streams that ultimately come to the Atlantic, 
rise in the western ridges of the Alleghany chain, and tra- 
verse its longitudinal valleys before leaving the mountains 
to cross the Atlantic slope, which terminates in a precipitous 
ledge for 300 miles parallel to the range. By falling over 
this rocky barrier in long rapids and picturesque cascades, 
they afford an enormous and extensive water power : and 
as the rivers are navigable from the Atlantic quite across the 
maritime plains, these two circumstances have determined 
the location of most of the principal cities of the United 



RIVERS OF SOUTH AMERICA. 205 

States at the foot of this rocky ledge, which, though not 
more than 300 feet high, has had a greater influence on the 
political and commercial interests of the Union, than the 
highest chains of mountains have had in other countries. 

The watershed of the Rocky Mountains lies at a greater 
distance from the Pacific than that of the AUeghanies from 
the Atlantic ; consequently the rivers are longer, but they 
are few and little known. The largest are the Oregon or 
Colombia and the Rio Colorado. The former has its source 
not far from those of the Rio del Norte, and after an exceed- 
ingly tortuous course, in which it receives many tributaries, 
it falls into the Pacific at Astoria. The Colorado is a Mex- 
ican stream, which comes from the Sierra Verde, and falls 
into the Gulf of California. 

There are many streams in Central America, and above ten 
rivers that are navigable for some miles ; six of these fall into 
the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, and four into the 
Pacific. 

The Andes, the extensive watershed of South America, 
are so close to the Pacific, that, excepting a few small streams 
at their southern extremity, there are no rivers on that side, 
and even the streams that rise in the western Cordilleras find 
their way to the eastern plains. 

The Magdalena, at the northern end of the Andes, though 
a secondary river in America, is 620 miles long. It rises in 
the central chain, at the divergence of the Cordillera of Santa 
Fe de Bogota, and enters the Caribbean Sea by various 
channels, navigable to Honda. The Cauca, its only feeder 
on the left, comes from Popayan, and is nearly as large as 
its primary, to which it runs parallel the greater part of its 
course. Many streams join the Magdalena on the right, as 
the Funzha, which waters the elevated plain of Bogota and 
forms the cataract of Tequendama, one of the most beautiful 
and wildest scenes in the Andes. The river rushes through 
a chasm 30 feet wide, which appears to have been formed 
by an earthquake ; and at a double bound descends 530 
feet into a dark gloomy pool, illuminated only at noon by a 
few feeble rays. A dense cloud of vapour rising from it 
is visible at the distance of 15 miles. At the top the vege- 
tation is that of a temperate climate, while palms grow at 
the bottom. 

With the exception of the Magdalena, all the water from 
18 



206 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the inexhaustible sources of the Andes is poured into the 
Orinoco, the river of the Amazons, and the Rio de la Plata, 
which convey it eastward across the continent to the At- 
lantic. 

The basins of these three rivers are separated in their 
lower parts by the mountains and high lands of the Parima 
and Brazil ; but the upper parts of the basins of all three, 
towards the foot of the Andes, form an extensive level, and 
are only divided from one another by imperceptible eleva- 
tions in the plains, barely sufficient to form the watersheds 
between the tributaries of these majestic rivers. This pecu- 
liar structure is the cause of the natural canal of the Cassi- 
quiare, which joins the upper Orinoco with the Rio Negro, 
a principal affluent of the Amazons. Ages hence, when the 
wilds are inhabited by civilized men, the tributaries of these 
three great rivers, many of which are navigable to the foot 
of the Andes, will, by means of canals, form a water system 
infinitely superior to any that now exists. 

The Orinoco, altogether a Colombian river, rises in the 
Sierra del Parima, 200 miles east of Duida, and maintains a 
westerly course to San Fernando de Atabapa, where it re- 
ceives the Atabapa, and Guaviare, which is larger than the 
Danube, and here ends the upper Orinoco. The river then 
forces a passage through the Sierra del Parima, and runs 
due north, for three degrees of latitude, between banks 
almost inaccessible ; its bed is traversed by dykes and filled 
with boulders of granite, and islands clothed with a variety of 
magnificent palm-trees. Large portions of the river are here 
engulfed in crevices, forming subterranean cascades ; and 
in this part are the celebrated falls of the Atures and Apures, 
36 miles apart, which are heard at the distance of many 
miles. At the end of this tumultuous part of its course it is 
joined by the Apure, a very large river, and then runs east- 
ward to its mouth, where it forms a large delta, and enters 
the Atlantic by many channels. As the upper Orinoco runs 
west, and the lower Orinoco east, it makes a complete cir- 
cuit round the Parima mountains, so that its mouth is only 
two degrees distant from the meridian of its sources. 

The Cassiquiare leaves the Orinoco at the point where the 
rapids begin, and joins the Rio Negro, a chief tributary of 
the Amazons, at the distance of 180 miles. 

The Orinoco is navigable 1000 miles, and at all seasons ; 



RIVERS OF SOUTH AMERICA. 207 

a fleet might ascend it from the Dragon's mouth to within 
45 miles of Santa Fe de Bogota. It receives many naviga- 
ble rivers, of which the Guaviare, the Atures, and the Meta 
are each larger than the Danube. The Meta may be 
ascended to the foot of the Andes ; its mean depth is 36 
feet, and in many places 80 or 90. It rises so high in th« 
Andes, that Baron Humboldt says the vegetable productions 
at its source differ as much from those at its confluence with 
the Orinoco, though in the same latitude, as the vegetation 
of France does from that of Senegal. The larger feeders of 
the Orinoco come from the Andes, though many descend to 
it from both sides of the Parima, in consequence of its long 
circuit among these mountains. 

The basin, of the Orinoco has an area of 300,000 square 
miles, of which the upper part is impenetrable forest, the 
lower is Llanos. 

The floods of the Orinoco, like those of all rivers entirely 
within the torrid zone, are very regular, and attain their 
height nearly at the same time with those of the Ganges, the 
Niger, and the Gambia. They begin to swell about the 25th 
of March, and arrive at their full and begin to decrease on 
the 25th of August. The inundations are very great, owing 
to the quantity of rain that falls in the wooded regions, 
which exceeds 100 inches in a year. 

Below the confluence of the Apure, the river is three 
miles and a quarter broad, but during the floods it is three 
times as much. By the confluence of four of its greatest 
tributaries, at the point at which it bends to the east, a low 
inland delta is formed, in consequence of which 3600 square 
miles of the plain are under water during the inundation. 
The Orinoco in many parts smells of musk, from the number 
of dead crocodiles. 

Upper Peru is the cradle of the Amazons, the greatest of 
rivers. It issues in two streams from the Lauricocha or 
Lake Laura, in the elevated plain of Bombon, on the summit 
of the Andes. Joined by many other streams, it pursues a 
northerly course between the lateral Cordilleras, till it bursts 
through the eastern ridge by the Pongo or pass of Manse- 
riche, and descends to the flat and wooded plain at the foot 
of the mountains; from whence it flows uniformly eastward 
till it reaches the Atlantic, having accomplished a course of 
3200 miles, or more properly 4000, including its windings, 



208 PHySICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

and drained an area of two millions and a half of square 
miles, which is ten times the size of France. In some 
places it is 600 feet deep ; it is navigable 2200 miles from 
its source, and is 96 miles wide at its mouth. 

The name of this river is three times changed in its course : 
it is known as the Maranon from its source to the confluence 
of the Ucayale ; from that point to its junction with the Rio 
Negro, it is called the Solimoes : and from the Rio Negro till 
it enters the ocean, it is the river of the Amazons. 

The number, length, and volume of its tributaries are in pro- 
portion to its magnitude, even the afHuents of its affluents are 
noble streams. More than 20 superb rivers, navigable al- 
most to their sources, pour their waters into it, and streams 
of less importance are numberless. Two of the largest, the 
Huallago and Ucayale, like their primary, rise in the plains 
of Bombon ; the former has its origin in the mining district 
of Pasco, and after a long northern course between the Cor- 
dilleras it breaks through a gorge similar to that of Manse- 
riche, and joins the Maranon in the plains: it is almost a mile 
broad above its junction. The Spanish Governor of Peru 
sent Pedro de Ursoa down this river, in the year 1560, to 
search for the lake of Parima, and the city of El Dorado. 
The Ucayale, not inferior to the Maranon itself, rises 90 
miles east of the city of Lima. In a course of 1080 miles 
it is fed by accessories from an enormous extent of country, 
and at its junction with the main stream, near the mission of 
San Joachim de Omaquas, a line of 50 fathoms does not 
reach the bottom. By these streams there is access to Peru, 
and there is communication between the Amazons and the 
most distant regions around by the other navigable feeders. 
On the south it is connected with Bolivia and Brazil by the 
Beni : and the Madiera, which is its greatest affluent, comes 
near the sources of the Paraguay, the principal accessory of 
the Rio de la Plata. The river of the Amazons is not less 
extensively connected on the north. The high lands of 
Colombia are accessible by the Putumoya, the Japura, and 
other great navigable rivers ; the Rio Negro, nearly nine 
miles broad a little way above its junction wnth the Amazons, 
unites the latter with the Orinoco by the Cassiquiare ; and 
lastly the sources of the Rio Branco come very near to those 
of the Essequibo, an independent river of Demerara. 

The main stream, from its mouth, nearly throughout its 



RIVERS OF SOUTH AMERICA. 209 

length, is full of river islands, and most of its tributaries 
have deltoid branches at their junction with it. The annual 
floods of the Amazons are less regular than those of the 
Orinoco, and as the two rivers are in different hemispheres, 
they occur at opposite seasons. The Amazons begins to 
rise in December, is at its greatest height in March, and its 
least in July and August. The quantity of rain that falls in 
the deep forests traversed by this river is so great, that were 
it not for the enormous evaporation, and the streams that 
carry.it off, the country would be flooded annually to the 
depth of eight feet. The Amazons is divided into two 
branches at its mouth, of which one joins the Para, south of 
the island of Das Joanes, the other enters the ocean to the 
north of it. 

The water of some of the rivers in equatorial America is 
white ; in others it is of a deep coffee colour, or dark green, 
when seen in the shade, but perfectly transparent, and when 
ruffled by a breeze, of a vivid green, like some of the Swiss 
lakes. In Scotland the brown w^aters comes from peat 
mosses, but it is not so in America, as they occur as oftert in 
forests as in savannahs. Mr. Schomburgk thinks they are 
stained by the iron in the granite; however, the colouring 
matter has not been chemically ascertained. The Orinoco 
and the Cassiquiare are white ; the Rio Negro is black, as 
its name implies, yet the water does not stain the rocks, 
which are of a dazzling white. Black waters are some- 
times, though rarely, found on the table-land of the Andes. 

The Rio de la Plata forms the third great water system of 
South America. The Rio Grande, its principal stream, rises 
in the mountains of Minas Geraes, in Brazil, and runs 500 
miles on the table-land from N. to S., before it takes the 
name of Parana. For more than 100 miles it is a continued 
series of cataracts and rapids, the greatest of which is the 
Salta Grande, about 24° 5' S. lat. Above the fall the river 
is three miles broad, when all at once it is confined in a 
rocky pass only 60 yards wide, through which it rushes 
over a ledge with a thunderous noise, heard at the distance 
of many mdes. The Parana receives three large rivers on 
the right; the Paraguay, the Pilcomayo, and the Vermejo, 
all generally tending to the south, unite at different distances 
before entering their primary at Corrientes. The Paraguay, 
1200 miles long, is the finest of these ; in its upper part it 
18* 



210 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

is singularly picturesque, adorned with palms and other 
tropical vegetation, and its channel islands are covered with 
orange groves. It springs from a chain of seven lakes, in 
the southern slopes of the Campos Parecis, in Brazil, and 
may be ascended by vessels of considerable burthen through 
19 degrees of latitude. The Pilcomayo and Vermejo, both 
come from Bolivia ; the former traverses the desert of the 
Gran Chaco, the latter the district of Tarija. At Santa Fe 
the La Plata turns eastward, and before entering the Atlantic 
is augmented by the Uruguay from the north, which takes 
its name from the turbulence of its streams. 

The Rio de la Plata is 2700 miles long, and for 200 miles 
from its mouth, up to Buenos Ayres, it never is less than 
170 miles broad. Were it not for the freshness of its water, 
it might be mistaken for the ocean ; it is, however, shallow 
and loaded with mud. 

The Paraguay is subject to dreadful floods ; in 1812 the 
atmosphere was poisoned by the putrid carcasses of drowned 
animals ; the ordinary annual inundations of the Parana, the 
principal or upper branch of the La Plata, cover 36,000 
square miles. 

In consequence of the vast extent of the very level plains 
along the base of the Andes, the basins of the three great 
rivers are apparently united. So small are the elevations 
that determine their direction, that, with the exception of a 
portage of three miles, a vessel might sail from Buenos 
Ayres, in 35° S. lat., to the mouth of the Orinoco, in 9" IS. 
lat., by inland navigation. 

There are various rivers in South America unconnected 
with those described, which in any other country would be 
esteemed of a high order. Of many that descend from the 
mountains of Parima, the Essequibo is the largest, fed by 
the streams of Guiana. Its general width is a mile and a 
quarter ; its water, though black, is transparent; and on its 
banks, and those of all its adjuncts, the forest reigns in 
impenetrable thickness. 

The Para and San Francisco are the chief Brazilian rivers ; 
both rise on the table-land : the former results from the union 
of "the Tocantins and Araguay ; it descends from the high 
lands in rapids in its northerly course, and after running 
1500 miles joins the southern branch of the Amazons before 
entering the Atlantic, south of the island Das Joanes. The 



RIVERS OF AUSTRALIA. 211 

San Francisfo is only 1275 miles long, and after travelling 
northward between mountain-ranges parallel to the coast, it 
breaks through them, and reaches the ocean about the 11th 
degree S. lat. As in the Appalachian chain, so here many 
little rivers come down the edge of the table-land to the level 
maritime plains of the Atlantic. 

In the far south the Rio Negro, and some other streams 
from the Chilian Andes, run through, but do not fertilize, 
the desolate plains of Patagonia. 

RIVERS OF NEW HOLLAND. 

After America, the land of the river and the flood, New 
Holland appears in more than its usual aridity. The absence 
of large rivers is one of the greatest impediments to the 
improvement of this continent. What it may possess in the 
interior is not known, but it is certain that no large river 
discharges its water into the ocean, and most of the small 
ones are absorbed before they reach it. 

The streams from the mountains on the eastern side of the 
continent are mere torrents, and would have short courses 
did they not run in longitudinal valleys, as, for example, the 
Hawkesbury. The Murumbigee, the Lachlan and McQuarrie, 
formed by the accumulation of mountain torrents, are the 
largest. 

The Murumbigee rises in the ranges west of St. George's 
Lake, and running south-west, meets the Lachlan, of un- 
known origin, coming from the east. After their junction 
they pass through the Alexandrine Marsh, and run into the 
Murray, a much larger stream, though only 350 feet broad, 
and not more than 20 feet deep, and on entering the ocean 
in Endeavour Bay it is too shallow even for boats. The 
Darling is supposed to be merely the upper part of the Mur- 
ray, probably rising towards the head of St. Vincent's Gulf. 
The origin of the Macquarrie is unknown : it is called the 
Fish River, between Bathurst and Sydney ; after running 
600 miles north-west, it is lost in the marshes. 

Swan River, on the western side of the continent, has 
much the same character ; and from that river to the Gulf 
of Carpentaria, along the whole of the western and northern 
shores of the continent, there are none. The want of water 
makes it hardly possible to explore the interior of this con- 
tinent. 



212 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

LAKES NORTHERN SYSTEM OF THE GREAT CONTINENT MOUN- 
TAIN SYSTEM OF THE SAME— AMERICAN LAKES. 

The hollows formed on the surface of the earth by the ground 
sinking or rising, earthquakes, streams of lava, the intersec- 
tion of strata, and those that occur along the edges of the 
different formations, are generally filled with water, and con- 
stitute systems of lakes, some salt and some fresh. Many of 
the former may be remnants of an ancient ocean left in the 
depression of its bed during its retreat as the continents arose. 

Almost all lakes are fed by springs in their beds, and they 
are occasionally the sources of the largest rivers. Some nei- 
ther receive tributaries nor have outlets: the greater number 
do both. The quantity of water in lakes varies with the sea- 
sons everywhere, especially from the melting snow on moun- 
tain-chains and high latitudes, and between the tropics from 
periodical rains. Small lakes occur in mountain passes, 
formed by water which runs into them from the commanding 
peaks: they are frequently, as in the Alps, very transparent, 
of a bright green or azure hue. Large lakes are common on 
table-lands and in the valleys of mountainous countries, but 
the largest are on extensive plains. The basin of a lake 
comprehends all the land drained by it; consequently it is 
bounded by an imaginary line passing through the sources 
of all the waters that fall into it. 

There are more lakes in high than in low latitudes, and 
in this respect there is a great analogy between the northern 
plains of the two principal continents. Sheets of water of 
great beauty occur in the mountain valleys of the British 
Islands, of Norway and Sweden, countries similar in geologi- 
cal structure; and besides these, there are two regions in the 
old world in which lakes particularly abound. One begins in 
the low coast of Holland, goes round the southern and eas- 
tern sides of the Baltic, often passing close to its shores, along 
the Gulf of Bothnia, and through the Siberian plains to Beh- 
ring's Straits. The lakes which cover Finland, and the great 



LAKES IN EUROPE. 213 

lakes of Ladoga and Onega, lie in a parallel direction : they 
occupy transverse rents which had taken place across the 
paleeozoic strata while rising in a direction from S.W. to N.E. 
between the Gulf of Finland and the White Sea; that eleva- 
tion was perhaps also the cause of the cavities now occupied 
by these two seas. Ladoga is the largest lake in this zone, 
having a surface of nearly 1000 square miles. It receives 
tributary streams and sends ofT its superfluous water by rivers, 
and Onega does the same ; but the multitude of small steppe 
lakes among the Ural Mountains and in the basin of the river 
Obi neither receive nor emit rivers, being for the most part 
mere ponds, though of great size, some of fresh, some of salt 
water, lying close together, a circumstance which has not 
been accounted for ; the lakes in the low Siberian plains have 
the same character. 

The second system of lakes in the old continent follows 
the zone of the mountain mass, and comprehends those of the 
Pyrenees, Alps, Apennines, Asia Minor, the Caspian, the 
lake of Aral, together with those on the table-land and in the 
mountains of central Asia. 

In the Pyrenees lakes are most frequent on the French side ; 
many are at such altitudes as to be perpetually frozen : one 
on Monte Perdido, 8393 feet above the sea, has the appear- 
ance of an ancient volcanic crater. There is scarcely a val- 
ley in the Alpine range and its offsets that has not a sheet of 
water, no doubt owing to the cavities formed during the ele- 
vation of the ridges, and in some instances to subsidence of 
the soil. There are more lakes on the north than on the south 
side of the Alps — the German valleys are full of them. In 
Bohemia, Gallicia, and Moravia, there are no less than 30,000 
sheets of water, besides great numbers throughout the Aus- 
trian empire. 

Of the principal lakes on the northern side of the Alps, the 
lake of Geneva, or lake Leman, is the most beautiful, from 
its situation, the pure azure of its waters, and the sublime 
mountains that surround it. Its area, of about 100 square 
miles, is 1150 feet above the sea, and at Meillerie it is 1000 
feet deep. The lake of Lucerne is 1400 feet above the sea, 
and the lake of Brienz 1900 feet. The Italian Alpine lakes 
are at a lower level : the Lago Maggiore has only 678 feet 
of absolute altitude: they are larger than those in the north, 
and with the advantages of an Italian climate, sky, and vege- 



214 PHYSICAL GEOGKAPHY. 

tation, they surpass the others in beauty, though the moun- 
tains that surround them are less lofty. 

These great lakes are fed by streams from glaciers in the 
higher Alps, and many large rivers issue from them. In this 
respect they differ from most of the lakes in lower Italy, which, 
with few exceptions, are craters of ancient volcanoes, or per- 
haps ancient craters of elevation, where the earth had been 
swelled up by subterranean vapour without bursting, and had 
sunk down again into a hollow when the internal pressure 
was removed. 

In Syria, the lake of Tiberias and the Dead Sea, sacred 
memorials to the Christian world, are situate in the deepest 
cavity on the earth. The surface of the former, 466 feet 
below the level of the Mediterranean, is adorned with ver- 
dant plains and aromatic shrubs; while the heavy, bitter 
waters of the Dead Sea, 1312 feet below the same level, is 
a scene of indescribable desolation and solitude, encompassed 
by desert sands, and bleak, stony salt-hills. Thus there is 
a difference of level of 1000 feet in little more than 60 miles, 
which makes the course of the Jordan very rapid. The water 
of the Dead Sea is so acrid that it irritates the skin : and as 
it contains 26*24 per cent, of chlorides, it is more buoyant, 
and contains a greater proportion of salt, than any that is 
known, except the small lake of Elton, east of the Volga. 

Though extensive sheets of water exist in many parts of 
Asia Minor, especially in Bithynia, yet the characteristic fea- 
ture of that country, and of all the table-land of Western Asia 
and the adjacent steppes, is the number and magnitude of 
the saline lakes. A region of salt lakes and marshes extends 
at least 200 miles along the northern foot of the Taurus range, 
on a very elevated part of the table-land of Anatolia. There 
are also many detached lakes, some exceedingly saline. Fish 
cannot live in the lake of Toozla, and if a bird dips its wings 
in the water, they are incrusted with salt on drying: it is 
shallow and subject to excessive evaporation. Neither can 
any animal exist in the lake of Shahee or Urmiah, on the con- 
fines of Persia and Armenia, 300 miles in circumference: its 
water is perfectly clear, and contains a fourth part of its 
weight of saline matter. These lakes are fed by springs, rain, 
and melted snow, and having no emissaries, the surplus water 
is carried off by evaporation. 
. It is possible that the volcanic soil of the table-land may 



LAKES IN ASIA. 215 

be the cause of this exuberance of salt water; yet there are 
many fresh- water lakes in their immediate vicinity. Lake 
Van, a sheet of fresh water, 240 miles in circumference, is 
separated from the salt lake Urmiah only by a range of hills, 
and there are many other pieces of fresh water in that neigh- 
bourhood. 

Persia is singularly destitute of water: the lake of Zorah, 
on the frontiers of Afghanistan, having an area of 18 square 
miles, is the only piece of water on the western part of the 
table-land of Iran. 

It is evident, from the saline nature of the soil and the 
shells it contains, that the plains round the Caspian, the lake 
of Aral, and the steppes, even to the Ural Mountains, had 
once formed part of the Black Sea. 57,000 square miles of 
that country are depressed below the level of the ocean, a 
depression which extends northwards beyond the town of 
Saratov, 300 miles distant from the Caspian. The surface 
of the Caspian itself, which is 83-6 feet below the level of 
the ocean, is its lowest part, and has an area of 18,000 square 
miles, nearly equal to the area of Spain. In Europe alone 
it drains an extent of 850,000 square miles, receiving the 
Volga, the Ural, and other great rivers on the north. It has 
no tide, and its navigation is dangerous from heavy gales, 
especially from the S.E., which drive the water miles over 
the land : a vessel was stranded 46 miles inland from the 
shore. It is 600 feet deep to the south, but is shallower to 
the east, where it is bounded by impassable swamps many 
miles broad. The lake Elton, on the steppe east of the Volga, 
has an area of 130 square miles, and furnishes two-thirds 
of the salt consumed in Russia. Its water yields 29-13 per 
cent, of solid matter, while the water of the Dead Sea has 
26-24 per cent, of saline ingredients; but it contains sul- 
phate of magnesia, whereas Lake Elton has chloride of 
calcium. 

The lake of Aral, which is shallow, is higher than the Cas- 
pian, and has an area of 3372 square miles. It has its name 
from the number of small islands at its southern end, Aral sig- 
nifying " island" in the Tartar language. Neither the Caspian 
nor the lake of Aral have any outlets ; though they receive 
large rivers, they, and all the lakes in Persia, are decreasing 
in extent and becoming more salt, the quantity of water sup- 
plied by tributaries being less than that lost by evaporation. 



216 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Most of the rivers that are tributary to the lake of Aral are 
diminished by canals that carry off water for irrigation ; for 
that reason the Oxus never reaches the lake. Besides, the 
Russian rivers yield less water than formerly, from the pro- 
gress of culture. 

The absence of lakes in the Himalaya is one of the pecu- 
liarities of these mountains. The lake of Ular, in the valley 
of Cashmere, is the only one of any magnitude : it is but 40 
miles in circumference, and seems to be the residue of one 
that had filled the whole valley at some early period. There 
are many great lakes, both fresh and salt, in the table-land : 
the annular form of Lake Palte, at the northern base of the 
Himalaya, is unexampled, and the height of the sacred lake 
of Manasa, in Great Tibet, is equally so, being 17,000 feet 
above the level of the sea. Tibet is full of lakes, many of 
which produce borax, found nowhere else but in Tuscany 
and the Lipari Islands. As most of the great lakes on the 
table- land are in the Chinese territories, strangers have not 
had access to them ; but the Koko-nor and Lake Lop seem 
to be very large ; the latter is said to have a surface of 2187 
square miles, and there are others not inferior to it in the 
north. The lakes in the Altai are beautiful, larger, and more 
numerous than in any other mountain-chain. They are at 
different elevations on the terraces by which the table-land 
descends to the flats of Siberia, and are, owing to geological 
phenomena, essentially different from those which have pro- 
duced the Caspian and other steppe lakes. They seem to 
have been hollows formed where the axes of the different 
branches of the chain cross, and are most numerous and deep- 
est in the eastern Altai. Baikal, the largest mountain lake, 
supposed to owe its origin to the sinking of the ground during 
an earthquake, has an area of 14,800 square miles, nearly 
equal to the half of Scotland. It lies buried in the form of 
a crescent amid lofty granite mountains which constitute the 
edge of the table-land to the south, ending in the desert of 
the Great Gobi, and in the north-west they gird the shore so 
closely that they dip into the water in many places : 160 
rivers and streams are tributary to this salt lake, which drains 
a country probably twice the size of Britain. The river An- 
gara, which runs deep and strong through a crevice at its 
eastern end, is its principal outlet, and is supposed to carry 
off but a small proportion of its water. Its surface is 1793 



LAKES IN AFRICA. 217 

feet above the sea-level, and the climate is as severe as it is 
in Europe 10° farther north, yet the lake does not freeze till 
the middle of December, possibly from being unfathomable 
with a line 600 feet long. 

Two hundred and eighty years before the Christian era 
the large fresh-water lake of Oitz, in Japan, was formed in 
one night by a prodigious sinking of the ground, at the same 
time that one of the highest and most active volcanoes in that 
country rose from the depths of the earth. 

Very extensive lakes occur in Africa, and notwithstanding 
the arid soil of the southern table-land, it contains the fresh- 
water lake of N'yassi, one of the largest, being some hundred 
miles long, and though narrow in proportion, it cannot be 
crossed in a boat of the country in less than three days, rest- 
ing at night on an island, of which there are many. It begins 
200 miles north from the town of Tete, on the river Zambeze, 
and extends from south-east to north-west to a very great 
but unknown distance, and between 300 and 400 miles from 
the Mozambique channel. No river is known to flow out of 
it, but it receives the drainage of the country on the south- 
west. No one knows what there may be on the unexplored 
regions of the Ethiopian desert, but Abyssinia has the large 
and beautiful lake of Dembea, situate in a spacious plain, the 
granary of the country, and so high above the sea, that spring 
is perpetual, though within the tropics. There are other 
lakes in this great projecting promontory so full of rivers, 
mountains, and forests, but the low lands of Soudan, the coun- 
try lying along the base of the Mountains of the Moon, in the 
principal region of African lakes, of which the Chad, almost 
the size of an inland sea, is in the very centre of the conti- 
nent. Its extent, and the size of its basin, are unknown, but 
it receives many affluents from the Mountains of the Moon, 
and is itself drained by the Chadda, a principal tributary of 
the Niger. Other lakes of less magnitude are known to exist 
in these regions, and there are probably many more that are 
unknown. Salt-water lakes are numerous on the northern 
boundaries of the great lowland deserts, and many fine sheets 
of fresh water are found in the valleys and flat terraces of the 
Great and Little Atlas. 

Fresh-water lakes are characteristic of the higher latitudes 
of both continents, but those in the old continent sink into 
insignificance in comparison with the number and extent of 
19 



218 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

those in the new. Indeed a very large portion of North 
America is covered with fresh water; the five principal lakes, 
Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie, and Ontario, with some of 
their dependents, probably cover an area of 100,000 square 
miles, that of Lake Superior alone 43,000, which is only 
7000 square miles less than the whole of England. The 
American lakes contain more than half the amount of fresh 
water on the globe. The altitude of these lakes shows the 
slope of the continent: the absolute elevation of Lake Supe- 
rior is 627 feet. Lake Huron is 30 feet lower, Lake Erie 32 
feet lower than the Huron, and Lake Ontario is 331 feet 
below the level of Erie. The river Niagara, which unites 
these two last lakes, is 33|^ miles long, and in that distance 
it descends 66 feet; it falls in rapids through 55 feet of that 
height in the last half-mile, but the upper part of its course 
is navigable. The height of the cascade of Niagara is 162 
feet on the American side of the central island, and 1 125 feet 
wide. On the Canadian side the fall is 149 feet high, and 
2100 feet wide — the most magnificent sheet of falling water 
known, though many are higher. The river St. Lawrence, 
which drains the whole, slopes 234 feet between the bottom 
of the cascade and the sea. The beds of lakes Superior and 
Ontario are respectively 165 and 336 feet below the surface 
of the Atlantic, affording another instance of deep indenta- 
tion in the solid matter of the globe. Some lakes are de- 
creasing in magnitude, but the contrary seems to be the case 
in America; between the years 1825 and 1838 Ontario rose 
nearly seven feet, and according to the American engineers 
Lake Erie had gained several feet in the same time. Lake 
Huron is said to be the focus of peculiar electrical pheno- 
mena, as thunder is constantly heard in one of its bays. The 
lakes north of this group are innumerable: the whole country, 
to the Arctic Ocean, is covered with sheets of water which 
emit rivers and streams. Lake Winnipeg, Rein-deer Lake, 
Slave Lake, and some others, may be regarded as the chief 
members of separate groups or basins, each embracing a wide 
extent of country almost unknown. There are also many 
lakes on each side of the Rocky Mountains, and in Mexico 
there are six or seven lakes of considerable size, though not 
to be compared with those in North America ; the largest is 
the lake of Tezcuco, on the west bank of which the city of 
Mexico is built. 



LAKES IN SOUTH AMERICA. 219 

There are various sheets of water in Central America, but 
only two of any magnitude, namely, Lake Izaval, out of 
which the Rio Dulce flows into the Gulf of Mexico, and the 
lake of Nicaragua, in the province of that name, about 100 
miles from the sea of the Antilles. 

In Central America the Andes are interrupted by plains 
and mere hills on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and that of 
Panama, on each of which there is a series of lakes and rivers, 
which, aided by canals, might form a water communication 
between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In the former the 
line proposed would connect the river Huasacula, on the 
Gulf of Mexico, with the bay of Tehuantepec, in the Pacific. 
In the Isthmus of Panama, the Gulf of St. Juan would be 
connected, by the river of that name and the large lake of 
Nicaragua, with the Gulf of Costa Rica. Here the water- 
shed is only 615 feet above the sea, and of easy excavation, 
and the lake, situated in an extensive plain, is deep enough 
for vessels of considerable size. 

A range of lakes goes along the eastern base of the Andes, 
but th^ greater part of them are mere lagoons or njarshes; 
some very large, which inundate the country to a great ex- 
tent in the tropical rains. There appears to be a deep hol- 
low in the surface of the earth at the part where Bolivia, 
Brazil, and Paraguay meet, in which lies the Lake Xaragas, 
extending on each side of the river Paraguay, but, like many 
South American lakes, it is not permanent, being alternately 
inundated and dry, or a marsh. Itsinundations cover 36,00i) 
square miles. Salt and fresh-water lakes are numerous on 
the plains of La Plata, and near the Andes in Patagonia, re- 
sembling in this respect those in high northern latitudes, 
though on a narrower scale. 

In the elevated mountain-valleys and table-lands of the 
Andes there are many small lakes of the purest blue and 
green colours, intensely cold, being mostly above the line of 
perpetual congelation. They are generally lifeless and un- 
fathomably deep, probably the craters of extinct volcanoes. 
The lake of Titicaca, however, in the Bolivian Andes, has 
an area of 4600 square miles, and is more than 120 fathoms 
deep, surrounded by splendid scenery. Though 12,795 feet 
above the level of the Pacific, its banks are clothed with turf 
w^here they are not cultivated, and in former times were the 
seat of advanced civilization, to which the ruins bear testi- 
mony. 



220 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The limpid transparency of the water in lakes, especially 
in mountainous countries, is remarkable ; minute objects are 
visible at the bottom, through many fathoms of water. The 
vivid green tints, so often observed in alpine lakes, may be 
produced by vegetable dyes dissolved in the water, though 
chemical analysis has not detected them. 

Lakes, being the sources of some of the largest rivers, are 
of great importance for inland navigation, as well as for irri- 
gation; while by their constant evaporation they maintain 
the supply of humidity in the atmosphere, so essential to ve- 
getation, besides the embellishment a country derives from 
their limpid and glassy waters. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE ATMOSPHERE. 



The annual supply of heat which the earth receives from the 
sun is always the same, and it is annually radiated into space, 
so that it neither accumulates in the earth nor in the atmos- 
phere. Its distribution is very unequal, but certain it is that 
an excess of heat in one part of the globe is compensated by 
a deficiency in another ; an unusually warm summer is 
balanced by a cold one elsewhere. Diurnal variations of heat 
are perceptible only at a small distance below the surface, 
because the earth is a bad conductor, the annual heating in- 
fluence of the sun penetrates much deeper. The heat which 
enters the earth in summer, returns during winter; and be- 
fore passing into space, tempers the cold in the higher lati- 
tudes. At the equator, where the heat is the greatest, it de- 
scends deeper than elsewhere, with a diminishing intensity ; 
but there, and everywhere throughout the globe, there is a 
stratum, at the depth of from 40 to 100 feet below the sur- 
face of the ground, where the temperature never varies, and 
is nearly the same with the mean heat of the surface. 

At least one-third of the sun's heat is absorbed by the air 
before reaching the earth, but the atmosphere is chiefly 
warmed by the radiation of the sun's heat from the earth in 
its return to space, which takes place most abundantly when 



ATMOSPHERIC CURRENTS. 221 

the sky is clear and blue. It is intercepted by clouds, so that 
a thermometer rises in cloudy weather, and sinks when the 
air becomes clear and calm; even a slight mist diminishes 
radiation from th-^ earth, because it returns as much heat as 
it receives. 

The superficial temperature of the earth is great at the 
equator, it decreases gradually towards the poles, and is an 
exact mean between the two at the 45th parallel of latitude; 
but a multitude of causes disturb this law. It is affected 
chiefly by the unequal distribution of land and water, by the 
height above the sea, by the nature of the soil, and by vege- 
tation, so that a line drawn on a map through all the places 
where the mean temperature of the earth is the same, would 
be very far from coinciding with the parallels of latitude, but 
would approximate more to them near the equator. 

Every thing that lives on earth depends upon the atmos- 
phere, the source of life and heat to animated nature. The 
air, being a heavy and elastic fluid, decreases in density up- 
wards according to a determinate law, so rapidly that three- 
fourths of it are within four miles of the earth, and all the 
meteoric phenomena perceptible to us, as clouds, rain, heat, 
and thunder, occur in that space, though the height of the 
atmosphere is about 50 miles. The actual pressure of the 
atmosphere is about 15 pounds on every square inch, dimi- 
nishing of course with the height. The density is liable to 
continual changes from the temperature, and the attraction 
of the sun and moon, which produce tides similar to those 
in the ocean. All these changes are responded to by varia- 
tions in the height of the barometer. 

The air expands and becomes lighter with heat, and con- 
tracts and becomes heavier with cold ; hence at the equator, 
where the sun is so powerful, the light warm air is con- 
stantly ascending to the upper regions of the atmosphere, 
and flowing north and south towards the poles, from whence 
the cold heavy air rushes along the surface of the earth to 
supply its place between the tropics, for the same tendency 
to restore equilibrium exists in the air as in other fluids. 
The two superficial currents are relatively deflected from 
their meridional directions by the rotation of the earth, so 
that the northern current becomes a north-east wind before 
arriving at the tropic of Cancer, and the southern current 
becomes a south-east wind before it comes to the tropic of 
19* 



222 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Capricorn. At the equator they so completely neutralize 
each other, that far at sea a candle burns without flickering. 
In fact, the difference of temperature puts the air in motion, 
and the direction of the resulting wind at every place de- 
pends upon the difference between the rotatory motion of 
the wind and the rotatory motion of the earth — the whole 
theory of the winds depends upon these circumstances. 

The trade-winds and monsoons are permanent, depending 
on the apparent motion of the sun ; but it is evident, from 
theory, that there must be partial winds in all parts of the 
earth, occasioned by local circumstances that affect the tem- 
perature of the air ; consequently the atmosphere is divided 
into districts both over the sea and land, in which the winds 
have nearly the same vicissitudes from year to year, and 
the regularity is greatest towards the tropics, where the 
causes of disturbance are fewer. In the higher latitudes it 
is more difficult to discover any regularity, on account of the 
greater proportion of land, the difference in its radiating 
power, and the greater extremes of heat and cold. But even 
there a degree of uniformity prevails in the succession of the 
winds. For example, in all places where north and south 
winds blow alternately, a vane veers through every point of 
the compass in the transition, and in some places the wind 
makes several of these gyrations in the course of the year. 
The south-westerly winds, so prevalent in the Atlantic 
Ocean between the 30th and 60th degrees of north latitude, 
are produced by the upper current being driven down to 
supply the superficial current which goes towards the equator ; 
and as it has a greater rotatory motion than the earth in 
these latitudes, it produces a south-westerly wind. North- 
westerly winds prevail in the corresponding latitudes of the 
southern hemisphere from the same cause. In fact, when- 
ever the air has a greater velocity of rotation than the surface 
of the earth, a wind more or less westerly is produced, and, 
when it has less velocity of rotation than the earth, a wind 
having an easterly tendency resuHs. Thus there is a per- 
petual exchange between the different masses of the atmos- 
phere, the warm air tempering the cold of the higher lati- 
tudes, and the cold air mitigating the heat of the lower ; it 
will be shown afterwards that the aerial currents are the 
bearers of principles on which the life of the animal and 
vegetable world depends. The trade- winds, being constant, 



VARIATIONS OF TEMPERATURE. 223 

are essentially connected with an equatorial permanent de- 
pression in the barometer, but the mercurial column varies 
in every other part of the globe with a change in the density 
of the air and the resulting wind ; indeed, the barometer 
gives the surest indication of an approaching change, often 
warning the mariner of the gale long ere it takes place. 
Here it may truly be said that " coming events cast their 
shadows before." 

Since the atmosphere is chiefly warmed by heat transmitted 
from the earth, the temperature of the air decreases as the 
height above the earth increases, so that at a very small 
elevation the cold becomes excessive, as on the tops of 
mountains. This circumstance is marked by the line of 
perpetual snow, which is subject to many variations, but 
on the mountains under the equator it has a mean height of 
15,207 feet, from whence it diminishes on both sides, and at 
last grazes the surface at the arctic and antarctic circles. 

The mean annual temperature of the air would be constant 
on each parallel of latitude, and would decrease regularly 
from the equator to the poles, were it not for the inequalities 
in the form and nature of the surface of the globe. But these 
causes of disturbance are so great that lines drawn on a map 
through all places having the same mean annual temperature 
are exceedingly irregular, except towards the equator, where 
they become nearly parallel to it. As the air receives most 
of its warmth from the earth, radiation is the principal cause 
of disturbance ; hence the temperature is most powerfully 
modified by the ocean, which occupies three times as much 
of the surface of the globe as the land, and is more uniform 
in its surface, and also in radiating power. On land, the 
difference in the radiating force of the mountains and table- 
lands from that of the plains, of the deserts from grounds 
covered with rich vegetation, of the wet land from the dry, 
is the most general cause of variation ; the local causes are 
beyond enumeration. 

Places having the same mean annual temperature often 
differ materially in climate ; in one the winters are mild and 
the summers cool, whereas in others the extremes of heat 
and cold prevail : England is an example of the first ; Que- 
bec, Petersburg, and the arctic lands are instances of the 
latter. It follows, as a consequence of the same quantity of 
heat being received annually from the sun, and annually 



224 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

radiated into space, that all the climates of the earth are 
stable, and that the vicissitudes are merely cycles that vanish 
after a few years. It is possible, however, that the earth 
may be affected by secular changes of temperature during 
the progress of the solar system through space. 

Moisture is evaporated in an Invisible form from every 
part of the land and water, but in very different quantities. 
Seven-tenths of the atmosphere rest on the ocean, therefore 
the sea has the greatest influence in modifying the climates 
on the land and supplying the air with moisture. The 
evaporation is greatest between the tropics, from the excess 
of heat, the preponderance of the ocean, and the rankness 
of vegetation. The average quantity of vapour decreases 
from the equator to the poles, and from the lower to the 
higher part of the atmosphere. The absolute quantity is 
very partial and irregular, depending everywhere on the 
dryness or humidity of the surface. As the vapour ascends 
in the atmosphere, it maintains its invisible form till it reaches 
a stratum of air of lower temperature, when it is condensed 
into clouds, and is thence precipitated in the form of rain, 
hail, or snow. Its dispersion and condensation are owing 
to the winds, the great agents in all atmospheric changes. 
From friction and other causes, the currents of air in the 
lower parts of the atmosphere run on each other horizontally ; 
and as they generally differ in moisture, temperature, and 
velocity, to them is due the formation of clouds, rain, and 
the generation of electricity. When two masses of air of 
different temperatures meet, the colder, by absorbing the heat 
which holds the moisture in solution, occasions the particles 
to coalesce and form drops of water, which fall by their 
gravitation ; and when two strata of air of different tempera- 
tures, moving rapidly in opposite directions, come into con- 
tact, an abundant fall of rain is the consequence, and, as in 
tropical countries the quantity of aqueous vapour is greatest, 
the rain-drops are largest, and the rain heaviest. 

The atmosphere, when clear, is almost always positively 
electric. The electricity arises from evaporation and the 
chemical changes which are perpetually in progress all over 
the globe ; and as they sometimes generate positive and 
sometimes negative electricity, they occasion great local 
variations in the electricity of the air, but the earth itself is 
always in a negative state. It has been considered by some 



DIAMAGNETISM OF THE GLOBE. 225 

meteorologists that clouds owe their form to the electric 
fluid, because, when two strata of air are of different tempe- 
ratures, and move in different directions, a portion of their 
aqueous vapour is deposited, and the electricity evolved is 
taken up by the remaining vapour, which causes it to assume 
the form of a cloud. Electricity of each kind is probably 
elicited by the friction of streams of air moving rapidly in 
different directions, and when clouds differently charged 
meet a storm ensues. Hail is formed when two masses of 
air of very different temperatures meet suddenly ; hence hail 
is rare in tropical countries, except near mountains. The 
quantity of electricity in the earth and atmosphere is very 
great ; it is constantly varying, and performs a very impor- 
tant part in animal and vegetable life. 

Magnetism, which pervades the whole earth, is identical 
with elec^tricity, although it never comes naturally into evi- 
dence. The brilliant experiments of Dr. Faraday give a 
new view of the magnetic condition of the substances on the 
surface of the globe. He found that ten of the metals are 
more or less magnetic, that is to say, they possess the power 
of attracting either pole of a magnet, and bars of these metals 
freely suspended between the poles of an electric magnet 
assume a position in the axis or line of the magnetic force, 
but all other substances whatever under the same circum- 
stances are repelled by both poles^ of the electric magnet, 
and take a position at right angles to the line of current of 
the magnetic force. The same effect, though less powerful, 
was produced by a steel horse-shoe magnet. All substances 
are thus either magnetic or diamagnetic, except air and the 
gases, which are neutral. Of the metals 10 are magnetic 
and 16 diamagnetic : iron and bismuth are the extremes of 
these two conditions of matter. The inferences drawn from 
these discoveries by Dr. Faraday are very important : " When 
we consider the magnetic condition of the earth, as a whole, 
without reference to its possible relation to the sun, and 
reflect upon the enormous amount of diamagnetic matter 
which forms its crust, and when we remember that magnetic 
curves of a certain amount of force, and universal in their 
presence, are passing through these matters, and keeping 
them constantly in that state of tension, and therefore of 
action, we cannot doubt but that some great purpose of 
utility to the system, and to us its inhabitants, is thereby 



226 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

fulfilled." " It is curious to see a piece of wood, or leaf, 
or an apple, or a bottle of water, repelled by a magnet, or 
the leaf of a tree taking an equatorial position. Whether 
any similar effects occur among the myriads of forms which 
in all parts of the earth's surface are surrounded by air, and 
subject to the action of lines of magnetic force, is a question 
which only can be answered by future observations. If the 
sun have any thing to do with the magnetism of the globe, 
then it is probable that part of this effect is due to the action 
of the light that comes to us from it, and in that view the 
air seems most strikingly placed round our sphere, investing 
it with a transparent diamagnetic, which therefore is perme- 
able to his rays, and at the same time moving with great 
velocity across them. Such conditions seem to suggest the 
possibility of magnetism being thence generated." Dr. 
Faraday's discoveries go still farther; having magnetised 
and electrified a ray of light, he has added another proof of 
the identity of these two powers. If a ray of polarized light 
be transmitted through certain transparent substances placed 
in the line of force connecting the opposite poles of an electro- 
magnet, it is so affected by this power that it becomes visible 
or invisible according as the current is flowing or not at the 
moment, this influence being more complete as the ray of 
light is more nearly parallel to the line of magnetic force, 
ceasing if it is perpendicular to it. The very same effect 
was produced with a steel horse-shoe magnet, though more 
feeble in degree. Mr. Christie has proved that magnetism 
has an influence on light direct from the sun.* 

Atmospheric air is principally a mixture of oxygen and 
azotic gas : of 100 parts of air, 21 are oxygen gas, the source 
of life and heat to the animal and vegetable kingdoms ; the 
other 79 parts are azote, or nitrogen. Besides these chief 
ingredients the air contains a very small quantity of ammonia, 
water in an invisible state, and a tenth per cent, of carbonic 
acid gas. The existence of the vegetable world depends 
upon these constituents. 

* See the 7th edition of the " Connection of Physical Sciences: on Polar- 
ized Light and Terrestrial Magnetism." 



VEGETATION. 227 



CHAPTER XXI. 

VEGETATION THE NOURISHMENT AND GROWTH OF PLANTS 

CLASSES — BOTANICAL DISTRICTS. 

In the present state of the globe a third part of its surface 
only is occupied by land, and probably not more than a 
fourth part of that is inhabited by man, but animals and 
vegetables have a wider range. The greater part of the 
land is clothed with vegetation and inhabited by quadrupeds, 
the air is peopled with birds and insects, and the sea teems 
with living creatures and plants. These organized beings 
are not scattered promiscuously, but all classes of them have 
been originally placed in regions suited to their respective 
wants. Many single animals and plants are indigenous only 
in determinate spots, while a thousand others might have 
supported them as well, and to many of which they have 
been transported by man. 

The atmosphere supplies the vegetable creation with the 
principal part of its food ; plants extract inorganic substances 
from the ground, which are indispensable to bring them to 
maturity. 

The black or brown mould, which is so abundant, is the 
produce of decayed vegetables. When the autumnal leaves, 
the spoil of the summer, fall to the ground, and their vitality 
is gone, they enter into combination with the oxygen of the 
atmosphere, and convert it into an equal volume of carbonic 
acid gas, which consequently exists abundantly in every good 
soil, and is the most important part of the food of vegetables. 
This process is slow, and stops as soon as the air in the soil 
is exhausted ; but the plough, by loosening the earth, and 
permitting the atmosphere to enter more freely, and penetrate 
deeper into the ground, accelerates the decomposition of the 
vegetable matter, and consequently the formation of car- 
bonic acid. 

In loosening and refining the mould, the common earth- 
worm is the fellow-labourer with man ; it eats earth, and, after 
extracting the nutritious part, ejects the refuse, which is the 



228 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

finest soil, and may be seen lying in he,aps at the mouth of 
its burrow. So instrumental is this reptile in preparing the 
ground, that it is said there is not a particle of the finer vege- 
table mould that has not passed through the intestines of a 
worm ; thus the most feeble of living creatures is employed 
by Providence to accomplish the most important ends. 

The food of the vegetable creation consists of carbon, hy- 
drogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, all of which plants obtain en- 
tirely from the atmosphere, in the form of carbonic acid gas, 
water, and ammonia. They imbibe these three substances, 
and, after having decomposed them, they give back the oxy- 
gen to the air, and consolidate the carbon, water, and nitro- 
gen into wood, leaves, flowers, and fruit. 

The vitality of plants is a chemical process, entirely due 
to the sun's light; it is most active in clear sunshine, feeble 
in the shade, and nearly suspended in the night, when plants, 
like animals, have rest. 

The atmosphere contains only one-tenth per cent, of car- 
bonic acid gas, yet that small quantity yields enough of car- 
bon to form the solid mass of all the magnificent forests and 
herbs that clothe the face of the earth, and would soon be 
exhausted, were it not renewed by the breath of animals, by 
volcanoes and mineral springs, and by combustion. The 
green parts of plants constantly imbibe carbonic acid in the 
day ; they decompose it, assimilate the carbon, and return 
the oxygen pure to the atmosphere. As the chemical action 
is feeble in the shade and in gloomy weather, only a part of 
the carbonic acid is decomposed, and then both oxygen and 
carbonic acid are given out by the leaves; but during the 
darkness of night a chemical action of a different character 
takes place, and almost all the carbonic acid is returned un- 
changed to the atmosphere, together with the moisture that 
is evaporated from the leaves both night and day. Thus, 
plants give out pure oxygen during the day, and carbonic 
acid and water during the night. 

Since the vivifying action of the sun brings about all these 
changes, a superabundance of oxygen is exhaled by the tro- 
pical vegetation in a clear unclouded sky, whiere the sun's 
rays are most energetic, and atmospheric moisture most abun- 
dant. In the middle and higher latitudes, on the contrary, 
under a more feeble sun, and a gloomy sky subject to rain, 
snow, and frequent atmospheric changes, carbonic acid is 



NOURISHMENT OF PLANTS. 229 

given out in greater quantity by the less vigorous vegetation. 
But here, as with regard to heat and moisture, equilibrium 
is restored by the winds: the tropical currents carry the ex- 
cess of oxygen along the upper strata of the atmosphere to 
higher latitudes, to give breath and heat to men and animals ; 
while the polar currents, rushing along the ground, convey 
the surplus carbonic acid to feed the tropical forests and jun- 
gles. Harmony exists between the animal and vegetable crea- 
tions: animals consume the oxygen of the atmosphere, which 
is restored by the exhalation of plants, while plants consume 
the carbonic acid exhaled by men and animals : the existence 
of each is thus due to their reciprocal dependence. Few of 
the great cosmical phenomena have only one end to fulfil; 
they are the ministers of the manifold designs of Providence. 

When a seed is thrown into the ground the vital principle 
is developed by heat and moisture, and part of the substance 
of the seed is formed into roots, which suck up water mixed 
with carbonic acid from the soil, decompose it, and consoli- 
date the carbon. In this stage of their growth plants derive 
their whole sustenance from the ground. As soon, however, 
as the sugar and mucilage of the seed appear above the 
ground, in the form of leaves or shoots, they absorb and 
decompose the carbonic acid of the atmosphere, retain 
the carbon for their food, and give out the oxygen in the 
day, and pure carbonic acid in the night. In proportion 
as plants grow, they derive more of their food from the 
air and less from the soil, till their fruit is ripened, and 
then their whole nourishment is derived from the atmos- 
phere. Trees are fed from the air, after their fruit is ripe, 
till their leaves fall ; annuals, till they die. Air-plants derive 
all their food from the atmosphere. The cactus semper vivens 
and the sedum semper vivens, which are attached to the 
ground only by a point, also succulent and milky-juiced 
plants which grow in barren ground, are almost entirely fed 
from the air, and even forests sometimes grow on land desti- 
tute of carbon. It is wonderful that so small a quantity of 
carbonic acid as exists in the air should suffice to supply the 
whole vegetation of the world. 

Plants absorb water from the ground by their roots, they 
decompose it, and the hydrogen combines in different pro- 
portions with their caibonic acid to form wood, sugar, starch, 
gum, vegetable oils, and acids. As the green parts of plants 
20 



230 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

combine with the oxygen of the air, especially during night, 
when the functions of plants are torpid, it is assimilated on 
the return of d.iylight, and assists in forming oils, resins, and 
acids. The combination of the oxygen of the air with the 
leaves, and also with the blossom and fruit, during night, is 
quite unconnected with the vital process, as it is the same 
in dead plants. An acid exists in the juice of every plant, 
generally in combination with an alkali. It must be observed 
however, that these different substances are produced at dif- 
ferent stages in the growth; for example, starch is formed in 
the roots, wood, stalks, and seeds, but it is converted into 
sugar as the fruit ripens, and the more starch, the sweeter the 
fruit becomes. Most of these new compounds are formed 
between the flowering of the plant and the ripening of the 
fruit, and indeed they furnish the materials for the flowers, 
fruit, and seeds. 

Ammonia, the third organic constituent of plants, is the 
last residue from the decay and putrefaction of animal matter. 
It is volatilized, and rises into the atmosphere, where it exists 
as a gas, but in so small a quantity that it cannot be detected 
by chemical analysis; yet, as it is very soluble in water, 
enough is brought to the ground by rain to supply the vege- 
table world. Ammonia enters plants by their roots along 
with rain-water, and is resolved within them into its consti- 
tuent elements, hydrogen and nitrogen. The hydrogen aids 
in forming the wood, acids, and other substances before men- 
tioned ; while the nitrogen enters into every part of the plant, 
and forms new compounds: it exists in the blossom and fruit 
before it is ripe, and in the wood as albumen; it also forms 
gluten, which is the nutritious part of wheat, barley, oats, 
and all other cerealia, as well as of esculent roots, as pota- 
toes, beet-root, &c. Nitrogen exists abundantly in peas, 
beans, and pulse of every kind ; quinine, morphia, and other 
substances, are compounds of it: in short, a plant may grow 
without ammonia, but it cannot produce seed or fruit: the 
use of animal manure is to supply plants with this essential 
article of their food. 

Thus the decomposition and consolidation of the elemen- 
tary food of plants, the formation of the green parts, the ex- 
halation of moisture by their leaves, its absorption by their 
roots, and all the other circumstances of vegetable life, are 
owing to the illuminating power of the sun. Heat can be 



NOURISHMENT OF PLANTS. 231 

supplied artificially in our northern climates, but it is impos- 
sible to replace the dazzling splendour of a southern sun. 
His illuminating influence is displayed in a remarkable de- 
gree by thecacalia ticoides: its leaves combine with the oxy- 
gen of the atmosphere during the night, and are as sour as 
sorrel in the morning; as the sun rises they gradually lose 
'their oxygen, and are tasteless by noon; and by the con- 
tinued action of the light they lose more and more, till to- 
wards evening they become bitter. 

The blue rays of the solar spectrum have most effect on the 
germination of seed^ the yellow rays, which are the most 
luminous, on the growirig plant. In spring and summer the 
oxygen taken in by the green leaves in the night aids in the 
formation of oils, acids, and the other parts that contain it; 
but as soon as autumn comes, the vitality or chemical action 
of vegetables is weakened, and the oxygen, no longer given 
out in the day, though still taken in during the night, be- 
comes a minister of destruction ; it changes the colour of the 
leaves, and consumes them when they fall. Nitrogen, so 
essential during the life of plants, also resumes its chemical 
character when they die, and by its escape hastens their 
decay. 

Although the food which constitutes the mass of plants is 
derived principally from water, and the gases of the atmos- 
phere, fixed substances are also requisite for their growth and 
perfection, and these they obtain from the earth by their roots. 
The inorganic matters are the alkalis, phosphates, silica, sul- 
phur, iron, and others. . 

It has already been mentioned- that vegetable acids are 
found in the juices of all the families of plants. They gene- 
rally are in combination with one or other of the alkaline 
substances, as lime, soda, potash, and magnesia, which are 
as essential to the existence of plants as the carbonic acid 
by which these acids are formed : for example, vines have 
potash ; plants used as dyes never give vivid colours without 
it; all leguminous plants require it, and only grow naturally 
on ground that contains it. None of the corn tribe can pro- 
duce perfect seeds unless they have both potash and phos- 
phate of magnesia : nor can they or any of the grasses thrive 
without silica, which gives the hard coating to straw, to the 
beard of wheat and barley, to grass, canes, and bamboos ; 
it is even found in solid lumps in the hollows and joints of 



232 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

cane, known in India by the name of tabashir. To bring 
the cerealia to perfection, it is indispensable that in their 
growth they should be supplied with carbonic acid for the 
stalk, silica to give it strength and firmness, and nitrogen for 
the grain. 

Phosphoric acid is found in the ashes of all vegetables, 
and is essential to many. Pulse contain but little of it, and 
on that account are less nutritious than the cerealia. I'he 
cruciform family, as cabbages, turnips, mustard, &c,, must 
have sulphur in addition to the substances common to the 
growth of all plants: each particular tribe has its own pe- 
culiarities, and requires a combination suited to it. 

The ocean furnishes some of the matters found in plants ; 
the prodigious quantity of sea-water constantly evaporated 
carries M'ith it salt in a volatilized state, which, dispersed 
over the land by the wind, supplies the ground with salt 
and the other ingredients of sea- water. The inorganic 
matters which enter plants by their roots are carried by the 
sap to every part of the vegetable system. 'ITie roots imbibe 
all liquids presented to them indiscriminately, but they retain 
only the substances they require at the various stages of their 
growth, and throw out such parts as are useless, together 
with the effete or dead matter rema'ming after the nutriment 
has been extracted from it. Plants, like animals, may be 
poisoned, but the power they have of expelling deleterious 
substances by thpir roots generally restores them to health. 
The feculent matter injures the soil ; besides, after a time 
the ground is drained of the inorganic matter requisite for 
any one kind of plant ; hence the necessity for a change or 
rotation of crops. 

- A quantity of heat is set free and also becomes latent in 
the various transmutations that taike place in the interior of 
plants ; so that they, like the animal creation, have a ten- 
dency to a temperature of their own, independent of external 
circumstances. 

The quantity of electricity requisite to resolve a grain 
weight of water into its elementary oxygen and hydrogen is 
equal to the quantity of atmospheric electricity which, is 
active in a very powerful thunder-storm; hence some idea 
may be formed of the intense energy exerted by the vegetable 
creation in the decomposition of the vast mass of water and 
other matters necessary for its sustenance. But there mur4 



NOURISHMENT OF PLANTS. 233 

be a compensation in the consolidation of the vegetable food, 
otherwise a tremendous quantity would be in perpetual 
activity. Possibly some part of the atmospheric electricity 
may be ascribed to this cause ; but there is reason to believe 
that electricity, excited by the power of solar light, consti- 
tutes the chemical vitality of vegetation. 

The colouring matter of flowers is various, if we may 
judge from the effect which the solar spectrum has upon 
their expressed juices. The colour is very brilliant on the 
tops of mountains and in the Arctic lands. Possibly the 
diminished weight of the air may have some effect, for it 
can scarcely be supposed that barometrical changes should 
be entirely without influence on vegetation. 

The perfume of flowers and leaves is owing to a volatile 
oil, which is often carried by the air to a great distance : in 
hot climates it is most powerful in the morning and evening. 
The odour of the huraeria has been perceived at the distance 
of three miles from the coast of South America, a species of 
tetracera sends its perfume as far from the island of Cuba, 
and the aroma of the Spice Islands is wafted out to sea. 
The variety of perfumes is infinite, and shows the innume- 
rable combinations of which a few simple substances are 
capable, and the extreme minuteness of the particles of 
matter. 

In northern and mean lathud,es' winter is a time of com- 
plete rest to the vegetable world, and in tropical climates 
the vigour of vegetation is suspended during the dry, hot 
season, to be resumed at the return of the periodical rains. 
Almost all plants sleep during the night ; some show it in 
their leaves, others in their blossom. The mimosa tribe not 
only close their leaves at night, but their foot-stalks droop ; 
in a clover-field not a leaf opens till after siinrise. The 
common daisy is a familiar instance of a sleeping flower ; it 
shuts up its blossom in the eveuing, and opens its white and 
crimson-tipped star, the " day's eye," to meet the early 
beams of the morning sun ; and then also " winking mary- 
buds begin to ope their golden eyes." The crocus, tulip, 
convolvulus, and many others close their blossoms at dif- 
ferent hours towards evening, some to open them again, 
others never. The condrille of the walls opens at eight in 
the morning and closes for ever at four in the afternoon. 
Some plants seem to be wide awake all night, and to give 
20* 



234 PPIYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

out their perfume then only, or at nightfall. Many of the 
jessamines are most fragrant during the twilight : the olea 
fragrans, the daphne adorata, and the night-stock reserve 
their sweetness for the midnight hour, and the night-flowering 
sirius turns night into day. It begins to expand its magnifi- 
cent sweet-scented blossom in the twilight, it is full blown 
at midnight, and closes, never to open again, with the dawn 
of day :— these are "the bats and owls of the vegetable 
kingdom." 

Many plants brought from warm to temperate climates 
have become habituated to their new situation, and flourish 
as if they were natives of the soil ; such as have been accus- 
tomed to flower and rest at particular seasons change their 
habits by degrees, and, adapt themselves to the seasons of 
the country that has adopted them. It is much more diffi- 
cult to transfer Alpine plants to the plains. Whether from 
a change of atmospheric pressure or mean temperature, all 
attempts lo cultivate them at a lower level generally fail : it 
is much easier to accustom a plant of the plains to a higher 
situation. 

Plants are propagated by seeds, offsets, cuttings, and buds ; 
hence they, but more especially trees, have myriads of seats 
of life, a congeries of vital systems acting in concert, but 
independently of each other, every one of which might be- 
come a new plant. In this respect the fir and pine tribe are 
inferior to deciduous trees which lose their leaves annually, 
because they are not easily propagated except by seeds. It 
has been remarked that all plants that are propagated by 
buds from a common parent stock have the same duration 
of life : this has been noticed particularly with regard to 
some species of apple-trees in England. 

A certain series of transitions take place throughout the 
lives of plants, each part being transformed and passing into 
another ; a law that was first observed by the illustrious poet 
Giithe. For example the embryo leaves pass into common 
leaves, these into bracteae, the bracteae into sepals, the sepals 
into petals, which are transformed into stamens and anthers, 
and these, again pass into ovaries with their styles and stig- 
mas, that are to become the fruit and ultimately the seed of 
a new plant. 

Plants are naturally divided into three classes, differing 
materially in organization : — The cryptogamia, whose flowers 



BOTANICAL CLASSES. 235 

and seeds are either too minute to be easily visible, or are 
hidden in some part of the plant, as in fungi, mosses, ferns, 
and lichens, which are of the least perfect organization. 
Next to these are the endogenous plants, which in their 
growth increase from the interior, as grasses and palms. In 
these the fresh leaves spring from the centre, and the foot- 
stalks of the old leaves form the outside of the stem : plants 
of this class are also known as monocotyledons, because they 
have but one seed-lobe which forms one little leaf in their 
embryo state. The flowers and fruit of this class are gene- 
rally referable to some law in which the number three pre- 
vails, as, for example, the petals and other parts are three 
in number. The exogenous plants form the third class, 
which is the most perfect in its organization and by much 
the most numerous, including the trees of the forest and 
most of the flowering shrubs and herbs. They increase by 
coatings from without, as trees, where the growth of each 
year forms a concentric circle of wood round the pith or 
centre of the stem ; these are also known as dicotyledonous 
plants, because their seeds have two lobes, which in their 
embryo state appear first in two little leaves above ground, 
like most of the European species. The parts of the flowers 
and fruit of this class generally have some relation to the 
number five. 

The three botanical classes are distributed in very different 
proportions in different zones : endogenous plants, such as 
grasses and palms, are much more rare than the exogenous 
class. Between the tropics there are four of the latter to one 
of the grass or palm tribes, in the temperate zones six to one, 
and in the polar regions only two to one, because mosses and 
lichens are most abundant in the high latitudes, where exo- 
genous plants are comparatively rare. In the temperate zones 
one-sixth of the plants are annuals, omitting the cryptoga- 
mia ; in the torrid zone scarcely one plant in twenty is an- 
nual, and in the polar regions only one in thirty. The num- 
ber of ligneous vegetables increases on approaching the equa- 
tor, yet in North America there are 120 different species of 
forest-trees, whereas in the same latitudes in Europe there 
are only 34. The social plants, grasses, heaths, furze, broom, 
daisies, &,c., which cover large tracts, are rare between the 



236 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

tropics, except on the mountains and table-lands and on the 
llanos of equatorial America. 

Equinoctial America has a more extensive and richer vege- 
tation than any other part of the world ; Europe has not above 
half the number of indigenous species of plants; Asia, with 
its islands, has somewhat less than Europe ; Australia, with 
its islands in the Pacific, still less ; and there are fewer vege- 
table productions in Africa than in any part of the globe of 
the same extent. 

Since the constitution of the atmosphere is very much the 
same everywhere, vegetation depends principally on the sun's 
light, moisture, and the mean annual temperature, and it is 
also in some degree regulated by the heat of summer in the 
temperate zones. Between the tropics, wherever rain does 
not fall, the soil is burnt up and is as unfruitful as that ex- 
posed to the utmost rigour of frost ; but where moisture is 
combined wath heat and light, the luxuriance of the vegeta- 
tion is beyond description. The abundance and violence of 
the periodical rains combine with the intense light and heal 
to render the tropical forests and jungles almost impervious 
from the rankness of the vegetation. This exuberance gra- 
dually decreases with the distance from the equator; it also 
diminishes progressively as the height above the level of the 
sea increases, so that each height has a corresponding parallel 
latitude Where the climates and floras are similar, till the 
perpetual snow on the mountain-tops and its counterpart in 
the polar regions have a vegetation that scarcely rises above 
the surface of the ground. Hence in ascending the Hima- 
laya or Andes from the luxuriant plains of the Ganges or 
Amazons, changes take place in the vegetation analogous to 
what a traveller would meet with in a journey from. the equa- 
tor to the poles. This law of decrease, though perfectly re- 
gular over a wide extent, is perpetually interfered with by 
local climate and soil. From the combination of various 
causes, as the distribution of land and water, their different 
powers of absorption and radiation, together with the form, 
texture, and clothing of the land, and the prevailing winds, 
it is found that the isothermal lines, or imaginary lines drawn 
through places on the surface of the globe which have the 
same mean annual temperature, do not correspond with the 
parallels of latitude. Thus in North America the climate is 
much colder than in the corresponding European latitudes. 



BOTANICAL DISTRICTS. 237 

Quebec is in the latitude of Paris, and the country is covered 
with deep snow four or five months in the year, and it has 
occurred that a summer has passed there in which not more 
than sixty days have been free from frost. 

In the southern hemisphere, beyond the 34th parallel, the 
summers are colder and the winters milder than in corres- 
ponding latitudes of the northern hemisphere. Neither does 
the temperature of mountains vary exactly with their height 
above the sea; other causes, as prevailing winds, difference 
of radiation, and geological structure, concur in producing irre- 
gularities which have a powerful effect on the vegetable world. 

However, no similarity of existing circumstances can ac- 
count for whole families of plants being confined to one par- 
ticular country, or even to a very limited district, which, as 
far as we can judge, might have grown equally well on many 
others. Latitude, elevation, soil, and climate, are but se- 
condary causes in the distribution of the vegetable kingdom, 
and are totally inadequate to explain why there are nume- 
rous distinct botanical districts in the continents and islands, 
each of which has its own vegetation, whose limits are most 
decided when they are separated by the ocean, mountain- 
chains, sandy deserts, salt-plains, or internal seas. Each of 
these districts is the focus of families and genera, some of 
which are found nowhere else, and some are common toothers, 
but, with a very few remarkable exceptions, the species of 
plants in each are entirely different or representative. This 
does not depend upon the difference in latitude, for the vege- 
tation of the United States of North America is totally unlike 
that of Europe under the same isothermal lines, and even be- 
tween the tropics the greatest dissimilarity often prevails 
under different degrees of longitude: consequently the cause 
of this partial distribution of plants, and that of animals also, 
which is according to the same law, must be looked for in 
those early geological periods when the earth first began to 
be tenanted by the present races of organised beings. 

As the land rose at different periods above the ocean, each 
part, as it emerged from the waves, had probably been clothed 
with vegetation, and peopled with animals, suited to its po- 
sition with regard to the equator, and to the climate and con- 
dition of the globe then being. And as the conditions and 
climate were different at each succeeding geological epoch, 
so each portion of the land, as it rose, would be characterized 



238 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

by its own vegetation and animals, and thus at last there 
would be many centres of creation, as at this day, all differ- 
ing more or less from one another, and hence alpine floras 
must be of older date than those in the plains. The vegeta- 
tion and faunas of those lands that differed most in age and 
place would be most dissimilar, while the plants and animals 
of such as were not far removed from one another in time 
and place would have correlative forms or family likenesses, 
yet each would form a distinct province. Thus, in opposite 
hemispheres, and everywhere at great distances, but under 
like circumstances, the species are representatives of one 
another, rarely identical ; when however, the conditions which 
suit certain species are continuous, identical species are found 
throughout, either by original creation or by migration. The 
older forms may have been modified to a certain extent by 
the succeeding conditions of the globe, but they never coidd 
have been changed, since immutability of species is a primor- 
dial law of nature. Neither external circumstances, time, nor 
human art, can change one species into another, though each 
to a certain extent is capable of accommodating itself to a 
change of external circumstances, so as to produce varieties 
even transmissible to their offspring. 

The flora of Cashmere and the higher parts of the Himalaya 
mountains is similar to that of southern Europe, yet the spe- 
cies are representative, not identical. In the plains of Tar- 
tary, where from their elevation the degree of cold is .not less 
than in the wastes of Siberia, the vegetation of one might be 
mistaken for that of the other ; the gooseberry, currant, wil- 
low, rhubarb, and in some places the oak, hazel, cypress, 
poplar, and birch, grow in both, but th^y are of different 
species. The flora near the snow-line on the lofty moun- 
tains of Europe, and lower down, has also a perfect family 
likeness to that in high northern latitudes. In like manner 
many plants on the higher parts of the Chilian Andes are 
similar, and even identical, with those in Terra del Fuego; 
nay, the Arctic flora has a certain resemblance to that of the 
Antarctic regions^ and even occasional identity of species. 
These remarkable coincidences maybe accounted. for by the 
ditferent places having been at an early geological period at 
the same level above the ocean, and that they continue to 
retain part of their original flora after their relative positions 
have been changed. The tops of the Chilian Andes were 



BOTANICAL DISTRICTS. 239 

probably on a level with Terra del Fuego, when both were 
covered with the same vegetation, and in the same manner 
the lofty plains of Tartary may have acquired their vegetation 
when they were on the level of southern Siberia. 

In the many vicissitudes the surface of the globe has un- 
dergone, continents formed at one period were broken up at 
another into islands and detached masses by inroads of the 
sea and other causes. Now Professor E. Forbes has shown 
that some of the primary floras and faunas have spread widely 
from their original centres over large portions of the conti- 
nents before the land was broken up into the form it now has, 
and thus accounts for the similarity and sometimes identity 
of the plants and animals of -regions now separated by seas, 
— as, for example, islands, which generally partake of the 
vegetation and fauna of the continents adjacent to them. 
Taking for granted the original creation of specific centres 
of plants and animals^ Professor E. Forbes has clearly proved 
that "the specific identity, to any extent, of the flora and 
fauna of one area, with those of another, depends on both 
areas forming, or having formed, part of the same specific 
centre, or on their having derived their animal and vegetable 
population by transmission, through migration, over continu- 
ous or closely contiguous land,, aided, in the case of Alpine 
floras, by transportation on floating masses of ice," 

By the preceding laM's the limited provinces and disper- 
sion of animal and vegetable life are explained, but the 
existence of single species in regions very far apart has not 
yet been accounted for. 

Very few of the exogenous or dicotyledonous plants are"" 
common to two or more countries far apart: among the few, 
the samolus valerandi, a common English plant, is a native 
of Australia ; the potentilla tridendata, not found in Europe, 
except on one hill in Augusshire, is common on the moun- 
tains of North America; and in the Falkland Islands there 
are more than 30 flowering plants identical with those in 
Great Britain, 

There are many more instances of wide diffusion among 
the endogenous plants, especially grasses : the phleum 
alpinum of Switzerland grows without the smallest varia- 
tion at the Straits of Magellan, and Mr. Bunbury met with 
the European quaking grasses in the interior of the country 
at the Cape of Good Hope ; but the cellular or cryptogaraous 



240 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

class is most widely diffused — plants not susceptible of cul- 
tivation, of little use to man, and of all others the most diffi- 
cult to transport. The sticta aurata, a Cornish lichen, is a 
native of the Cape of Good Hope, St. Helena, the West 
Indian islands, and Brazil; the trichomanes brevisetum 
grows scarcely anywhere but in Yorkshire and JVladeira : 
and our eminent botanist, Mr. Brown, found 38 British 
lichens, and 28 British mosses in New Holland, yet in no 
two parts of the world is the vegetation more dissimilar. 

Some plants are concentrated in particular spots : the 
cinchona, which furnishes the Peruvian bark, grows only on 
the Andes of Loxa and Venezuela ; the cedar of Lebanon is 
indigenous on that celebrated mountain only ; and the disa 
grandiflora is limited to a very small spot on the top of the 
table-mountain at the Cape of Good Hope ; but whether 
these are remnants whose kindred have perished by a change 
of physical circumstances, or centres only beginning to spread, 
it is impossible to say. 



CHAPTER XXH. 



VEGETATION OF THE GREAT CONTINENT OF THE ARCTIC 

ISLANDS AND OF THE ARCTIC AND NORTH TEMPERATE 

REGIONS OF EUROPE AND ASIA. 

The southern limit of the polar flora, on the great continent, 
lies mostly within the Arctic circle, but stretches along the 
tops of the Scandinavian mountains, and reappears in the 
high lands of Scotland, Cumberland, and Ireland, on the 
summits of the Pyrenees, Alps, and other mountains in 
southern Europe, as well as on the table-land of eastern 
Asia, and on the high ridges of the Himalaya. 

The great European plain to the Ural Mountains, as well 
as the low-lands of England and Ireland, were atone period 
covered by a small sea full of floating ice and icebergs, which 
made the climate much colder than it now is. At the begin- 
ning of that period the Scandinavian range, the other conti- 
nental mountains, and those in Britain and Ireland, were 
islands of no great elevation, and were then clothed with the 



VEGETATION OF THE GREAT CONTINENT. 241 

Arctic flora, or a representative of it, which they still retain 
now that they form the tops of the mountain-chains, and at 
that time both plants and animals were conveyed from one 
country to another by the floating ice. It is even probable, 
from the relations of the fauna and flora, that Greenland, 
Iceland, and the very high European latitudes, are the residue 
of a great northern land which had sunk down at the close 
of the glacial period, for there were many vicissitudes of 
level during that epoch. At all events it may be presumed 
that the elevation of the Arctic regions of both continents, 
if not contemporaneous, was probably not far removed in 
time. Similarity of circumstances had extended throughout 
the whole Arctic regions, since there is a remarkable simi- 
larity and occasional identity of species of plants and animals 
in the high latitu<ies of both continents, which is continued 
along the tops of their mountain-chains, even in the temperate 
zones ; and there is reason to believe that the relations be- 
tween the faunas and floras of Boreal America, Asia, and 
Europe, must have been established towards the close of 
the glacial period. 

The flora of Iceland approaches nearer to the British than 
to that of any other country, yet only one in four of the 
Icelandic plants are known in our islands. There are 870 
species in Iceland, of which more than half are flower-bear- 
ing: this is a greater proportion than is found in Scotland, 
but there are only 3'2 of woody texture. This flora is scat- 
tered in groups according as the plants like a dry, marshy, 
volcanic, or marine soil. Many grow to an unnatural size 
close to the hot-springs ; thyme grows in cracks of the basin 
of the Great Geyser, where every other plant is petrified ; 
and a species of chara flourishes and bears seed in a spring 
hot enough to boil an egg. The Icelanders make bread 
from metur, a species of wild corn, and also from the bulbous 
root of polyganum viviparum ; their greatest delicacy is the 
angelica archangelica ; Iceland moss, used in medicine, is 
an article of commerce. There are 583 species in the Feroe 
Islands, of which 270 are flowering plants : many thrive 
there that cannot hear the cold of Iceland.* 

* Trevelyan's Travels in Iceland and the Feroe Islands. 

21 



242 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



ARCTIC FLORA OF THE GREAT CONTINENT. 

In the most northern parts of the Arctic lands the year 
is divided into one long intensely cold night and one bright 
and fervid day, which quickly brings to maturity the scanty 
vegetation. Within the limit of perpetual congelation the 
palmetto invalis, a very minute red or orange-coloured plant, 
finds nourishment on the surface of the snow, the first dawn 
of vegetable life : it is also found colouring large patches of 
snow on the Alps and Pyrenees. 

Lichens are the first vegetables that appear at the limits 
of the snow-line, whether in high latitudes or mountain-tops, 
and they are the first vegetation that takes possession of 
volcanic lavas and new islands, where they prepare soil for 
plants of a higher order: they grow on rocks, stones, and 
trees, in fact on any thing that afibrds them moisture. More 
than 2400 species are already known : no plants are more 
widely diffused, and none afford a more striking instance of 
the arbitrary location of species, as they are of so little direct 
use to man that they could not have been disseminated by 
his agency. The same kinds prevail throughout the Arctic 
regions, and the species common to both hemispheres are 
very numerous. Some lichens produce brilliant red, orange, 
and brown dyes ; and the tripe de roche, a species of gyro- 
phora, is a miserable substitute for food, as our intrepid 
countryman Sir John Franklin and his brave companions 
experienced in their perilous Arctic journey. 

Mosses follow lichens on newly-formed soil, and they are 
founii everywhere throughout the world in damp situations, 
but in greatest abundance in temperate climates : 800 species 
are known, of which a great part inhabit the Arctic regions, 
constituting a large portion of the vegetation. 

In Asiatic Siberia north of the 60th parallel of latitude the 
ground is perpetually frozen at a very small depth below the 
surface : a temperature of 70° below zero of Fahrenheit is not 
uncommon, and in some instances the cold has been 120° 
below zero. Then it is fatal to animal life, especially if ac- 
companied by wind. In some places trees grow and corn 
ripens even at 70° of north latitude ; but in the most northern 
parts boundless swamps, varied by lakes both of salt and 
fresh water, cover wide portions of this desolate country, 



ARCTIC FLORA. 243 

which is buried under snow nine or ten months in the year. 
As soon as the snow is melted by the returning sun, these 
extensive morasses are covered with coarse grass and rushes, 
while mosses and lichens mixed with dwarf willows clothe 
the plains ; saline plants abound, and whole districts produce 
diotis ceratoides. 

In Nova Zambia and other places in the far north the 
vegetation is so stunted that it barely covers the ground, but 
a much greater variety of minute plants of great beauty are 
crowded together there in a small space than in the Alpine 
regions of Europe where the same genera grow. This arises 
from the weakness of the vegetation ; for in the Swiss Alps 
the same plant frequently occupies a large space excluding 
every other, as the dark-blue gentian, the violet-coloured 
pansy, the pink and yellow stone-crops. In the remote 
north, on the contrary, where vitality is comparatively fee- 
ble and the seeds do not ripen, thirty different species may 
be seen crowded together in a brilliant mass, no one having 
strength to overcome the rest. In such frozen climates plants 
may be said to live between the air and the earth, for they 
scarcely rise above the soil, and their roots creep along the 
surface, not having power to enter it. All the woody plants, 
as the betula lanata, the articulated willow, andromeda tetra- 
gona, with a fewberry-bearing shrubs, trail along the ground, 
never rising more than an inch or two above it. The salix 
lanata, the giant of these boreal forests, never grows more 
than five inches above the surface, while its stem, ten or 
twelve feet long, lies hidden among the moss, owing shelter 
to its lowly neighbour. 

The chief characteristic of the vegetation of the Arctic 
regions is the predominance of perennial and cryptogamous 
plants, and also of the sameness of its nature, but more to 
the south, where night begins to alternate with day, a dif- 
ference of species appears in longitude as well as in latitude. 
A beautiful flora of vivid colours adorns these latitudes both 
in Europe and Asia during their brief but bright and ardent 
summer, consisting of potentillas, gentians, chickweeds, saxi- 
frages, sedums, ranunculi, spirseas, drabas, artemisias, clay- 
tonias, and many more. Such is the power of the sun and 
the consequent rapidity of vegetation, that these plants spring 
up, blossom, ripen their seed, and die, in six weeks : in a 
lower latitude woody^ plants follow these, as berry-bearing 



244 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

shrubs, the glaucous kalmia, the trailing azalia, and rhodo- 
dendrons. The Siberian flora differs from that in the same 
European latitudes by the North American genera phlox, 
mitella, claytonia, and the predominance of asters, solidago, 
spiraea, milk-vetches, worm-wood and the saline plants, 
goosefoot, and saltworts. 

Social plants abound in many parts of the northern coun- 
tries, as grass, heath, furze, and broom : the steppes are an 
example of this on a very extensive scale. Both in Europe 
and Asia they are subject to a rigorous winter, with deep 
snow and chilling blasts of wind ; and as the soil generally 
consists of a coating of vegetable mould over clay, no plants 
with deep roots thrive upon them ; hence the steppes are 
destitute of trees, and even bushes are rare except in ravines : 
the grass is thin, but nouris^iing. Hyacinths and some other 
bulbs, mignionette, asparagus, liquorice, and wormwood, 
grow in the European steppes; the two last are peculiarly cha- 
racteristic. The nymphsea nilumba' grows in one spot five 
miles from the town of Astracan, and nowhere else in the 
wide domains of Russia : the leaves of this beautiful aquatic 
plant are often two feet broad, and its rose-coloured blos- 
soms are very fragrant. It is also native in India and Tibet, 
where it is held sacred, as it was formerly in Egypt, where 
it is said to be extinct : it is one of the many instances of a 
plant growing in countries far apart. 

Each steppe in Siberia has its own peculiar plants : the 
peplis and camphorasina are peculiar to the steppe of the 
Irtish, and the araaryllis tartarica abounds in the meadows 
of eastern Siberia, where the vegetation bears a great ana- 
logy to that of north-western America : several genera and 
species are common to both. 

Half the plants found by Wormskiold in Karatschatka are 
European, with the exception of eight or ten, which are 
American. Few European trees grow in Asiatic Siberia, 
notwithstanding the similarity of climate, and most of them 
disappear towards the rivers Tobol and Irtish. 

In Lapland and in the high latitudes of Russia large tracts 
are covered with birch-trees, but the pine and fir tribe are 
the principal inhabitants of the north. Prodigious forests of 
these are spread over the mountains of Norway and Sweden, 
and in European Russia 200,000,000 acres are clothed with 
these coniferse alone, or occasionally mixed with willows, 



ARCTIC FLORA. 245 

poplars, and alders. Although soils of pure sand and lime 
are absolutely barren, yet they generally contain enough of 
alkali to supply the wants of the fir and pine tribes, which 
require ten times less than oaks and other deciduous trees. 

The Siberian steppes are bounded on the south by great 
forests of pine, birch, and willow: poplars, elms, and Tar- 
tarian maple overhang the upper courses of the noble rivers 
which flow from the mountains to the Frozen Ocean, and on 
the banks of the Yenessei the pinus cimbra, or Siberian 
pine, with edible fruit, grows 120 feet high. The Altai are 
covered nearly to their summit with similar forests, but on 
their greatest heights the stunted larch crawls on the ground, 
and the flora is like that of northern Siberia: round the lake 
Baikal the pinus cimbra grows nearly to the snow-line. 
' Forests of black birch are peculiar to Da-Ouria, where 
there are also apricot and apple trees, and rhododendrons, 
of which a species grows in thickets on the hills, with yel- 
lo_w blossoms. Here and everywhere else throughout this 
country are found all the species of caragana, a genus en- 
tirely Siberian. Each terrace of the mountains and each 
steppe on the plains has its peculiar plants, as well as some 
common to all : perennial plants are more numerous than 
annuals. 

If temperature and climate depended upon latitude alone, 
all Asia between the 50th and 30th parallels would have a 
mild climate ; but that is far from being the case, on account 
of the structure of the continent, which consists of the high- 
est table-lands and the lowest plains on the globe. 

The table-land of Tibet, where it is not cultivated, has 
the character of great sterility, and the climate is as unpro- 
pitious as the soil: frost, snow, and sleet begin early in 
September, and continue with little interruption till May ; 
snow, indeed, falls every month in the year. The air is 
always dry, because in winter moisture falls in the form of 
snow, and in summer it is quickly evaporated by the intense 
heat of the sun. The thermometer sometimes rises to 144° 
of Fahrenheit in the sun, and even in winter his direct rays 
have great power for an hour or two, so that a variation of 
100° in the temperature of the air has occurred in twelve 
hours. Notwithstanding these disadvantages there are shel- 
tered spots which produce most of the European grain and 
fruit, though the natural vegetation bears the Siberian cha- 
21* 



246 - PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

racter, but the speeies are quite distinct. The most com- 
mon indigenous plants are Tartarian furze and various 
prickly shrubs resembling it, gooseberries, currants, hyssop, 
dog-rose, dwarf sow-thistle, equisetum, rhubarb, lucern, and 
assafoetida, on which the flocks feed. Prangos, an umbelli- 
ferous plant with broad leaves and scented blossom, is pecu- 
liar to Ladak and Tibet. Mr. Moorcroft says it is so nutri- 
tious, that sheep fed on it become fat in twenty days. 
There are three species of wheat, three of barley, and two of 
buckwheat, natives of the lofty table-land, where the sar- 
sinh is. the only fruit known to be indigenous. Owing to 
the rudeness of the climate trees are not numerous, yet on 
the lower declivities of some mountains there are aspens, 
birch, yew, ash. Tartaric oak, various pines, and the pavia, 
a species of horse-chestnut. Much of the table-land of Tar- 
tary is occupied by the Great Gobi and other deserts of 
sand, with grassy steppes near the mountains ; but of the 
flora of these regions we know nothing. 



FLORA OF BRITAIN AND OF MIDDLE AND 
SOUTHERN EUROPE. 

The British Islands afford an excellent illustration of dis- 
tinct provinces of animals and plants, and also of their mi- 
gration from other centres. Professor E. Forbes has deter- 
mined five botanical districts, four of which are restricted to 
limited provinces, whilst the fifth, which comprehends the 
great mass of British plants, is everywhere, either alone or 
mixed with the others. The first includes the flora of the 
mountain districts in the west and south-west of Ireland, 
which is similar to that in the north of Spain. The flora in 
the south of England and south-east of Ireland is different 
from that in all other parts of the British Islands, but is inti- 
mately related to that of the Channel Islands and the French 
coast opposite to them. 

In the south-east of England the flora is like that on the 
adjacent coast of France. The tops of the Scottish moun- 
tains are the focus of a separate flora, a few of whose plants 
are found also on the summits of the mountains in Cumber- 
land and Wales, and Scandinavian plants are mingled with 
it in Scotland. The fifth, of more recent origin than the 



FLORA OF MIDDLE EUROPE. 247 

Alpine flora, includes all the ordinary flowering plants, as 
the common daisy and primrose, hairy ladies' smock, up- 
right meadow crowfoot, and the lesser celandine, together 
with our common trees and shrubs, has migrated from Ger- 
many before England was separated from the continent of 
Europe by the British Channel. It can be distinctly traced 
in its progress across the island, but the migration was not 
completed till after Ireland was separated from England by 
the Irish Channel, and that is the reason why many of the 
ordinary English plants, animals, and reptiles are not found 
in" the sister island, for the migration of animals was simul- 
taneous with that of plants, and took place between the last 
of the tertiary periods and the historical epoch, that of man's 
creation : it was extended also over a great part of the Con- 
tinent. 

Deciduous trees are the chief characteristic of the tempe- 
rate zone of the old continent, more especially of middle 
Europe : these thrive best in soil produced by the decay of 
the primary and ancient volcanic rocks, which furnish abun- 
dance of alkali. Oaks, elms, beech, ash, larch, maple, lime, 
alder, and sycamore, all of which lose their leaves in winter, 
are the prevailing vegetation, occasionally mixed with fir and 
pine. 

The undergrowth consists of w^ild apple, cherry, yew, holly, 
hawthorn, broom, furze, wild rose, honeysuckle, clematis, 
&c. The most numerous and characteristic herbaceous plants 
are the umbelliferous class, as carrot and anise, the campa- 
nulas, the chicoracesp, a family to which lettuce, endive, 
dandelion, and sow-thistle belong. The cruciform tribe, as 
wallflower, stock, turnip, cabbage, cress, &c., are so nume- 
rous, that they form a distinguishing feature in the botany of 
middle Europe, to which 45 species of them belong. This 
family is almost confined to the northern hemisphere, for of 
800 known species, only 100 belong to the southern, the soil 
of which must contain less sulphur, which is indispensable 
for these plants. 

In the Pyrenees, Alps, and other high lands in Europe, 
the gradation of botanical forms from the summit to the foot 
of the mountains is similar to that which takes place from 
the Arctic to the middle latitudes of Europe. The analogy,, 
however, is true only when viewed generally, for many local 
circumstances of climate and vegetation interpose, and al- 



248 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

though the similarity of botanical forms is very great between 
certain zones of altitude and parallels of latitude, the species 
are for the most part different. 

Evergreen trees and shrubs become more frequent in the 
southern countries of Europe, where about a fourth part of 
the ligneous vegetation never entirely lose their leaves. The 
flora consists chiefly of ilex, oak, cypress, hornbeam, sweet 
chestnut, laurel, laurestina, the apple tribe, manna, and the 
flowering ash, carob, jujub, juniper, terebinthinas, and len- 
tiscus pistaccio, which yield resin and mastick, arbutus, myr- 
tle, jessamine, yellow and white, various pines, as the pinus 
maritima, and pinus pinea, or stone pine, which forms so 
picturesque a feature in the landscape of southern Europe. 
The most prevalent herbaceous plants are caryophyllae, as 
pinks, stellaria and arenarias, and also the labiate tribe, mint, 
thyme, rosemary, lavender, w^ith many others, all remarka- 
ble for their aromatic properties, and their love of dry situa- 
tions. Many of the choicest plants and flowers, which adorn 
the gardens and grounds in northern Europe, are indigenous 
in these warmer countries ; the anemone, tulip, mignionette, 
narcissus, gladiolus, iris, asphodel, amaryllis, carnation, &c. 
In Spain, Portugal, Sicily, and the other European shores of 
the Mediterranean, tropical families begin to appear in the 
arums, plants yielding balsams, oleander, date and palmetto 
palms, and grasses of the order panicum or millet, cyperacese, 
or sedges, aloe and cactus. In this zone of transition there 
are six herbaceous for one woody plant. 



FLORA OF TEMPERATE ASIA. 

The vegetation of western Asia approaches nearly to that 
of India at one extremity, and Europe at the other; of 281 
genera of plants which grow in Asia Minor and Persia, 109 
are European. Syria and Asia Minor form a region of tran- 
sition, like the other countries on the Mediterranean, where 
the plants of the temperate and tropical zones are united. 
We owe many of our best fruits and sweetest flowers to these 
regions. The cherry, almond, oleander, syringa, locust tree, 
&c., come from Asia Minor; the walnut, peach, melon, cu- 
cumber, hyacinth, ranunculus, come from Persia; the date, 
palm, fig, olive, mulberry, and- damask rose, come from 



FLORA OF ASIA. 249 

'Syria; the vine and apricot are Armenian, the latter grows 
also everywhere in middle and northern Asia. The tropical 
forms met with in more sheltered places are the sugar-cane, 
date and palmetto palms, mimosas, acacias, asclepea gigan- 
tea, and other arborescent apocinese. On the mountains 
south of the Black Sea, American types appear in rhododen- 
drons, and the azelea pontica^and herbaceous plants are nu- 
merous and brilliant in these countries. ' 

- The table-land of Persia, though not so high as that of eas- 
tern Asia, resembles it in the quality of the soil, which is 
chiefly clayey, sandy, or saline, and the climate is very dry ; 
hence vegetation is poor, and consists of thorny bushes, aca- 
cias, mimosas, tamarisk, jujub, and assafoetida. Forests of 
oak cover the Lusistan mountains, but the date palm is theonly 
produce of the parched shores of the Arabian Gulf and of the 
oases on the Persian table-land. In the valleys, which are 
beautiful, there are clumps of Oriental plane and other trees, 
hawthorn, tree roses, and many of the odoriferous shrubs of 
Arabia Felix. 

Afghanistan produces the seedless pomegranate. The true 
indigo grows in the lower offsets of the Hindoo-Coosh, where 
the valleys are covered with clover, thyme, violets, and many 
odoriferous plants: the greater part of the trees in the moun- 
tains are of European genera, though all the species of plants, 
both woody and herbaceous, are peculiar. 

Hot arid deserts bound India on the west, where the stunted 
and scorched vegetation consists of tamarisk, thorny acacia, 
deformed euphorbise, and almost leafless thorny trees, shaggy 
with long hair, by which they imbibe moisture and carbon 
from the atmosphere. Indian forms appear near Delhi, in 
the genera flacourtia and others, mixed with Syrian plants. 
East of this transition the vegetation becomes entirely Indian, 
except on the higher parts of the mountains, where European 
types prevail. 

The Himalaya Mountains form a distinct botanical district. 
Immediately below the snow-line the flora is almost the same 
with that on the high plains of Tartary, to which may be 
added rhododendrons and andromedas, and among the her- 
baceous plants a primrose appears. Lower down vast tracts 
are covered with prostrate bamboos, and European forms be- 
come universal, though the species are Indian, as gentians, 
plantagoSj campanulus, and gale. There are extensive forests 



250 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

of coniferse, consisting chiefly of pinus excelsa, deodora, and 
morinda, with many deciduous forest and fruit-trees of Euro- 
pean genera. A transition from this flora to a tropical vege- 
tation takes place between the altitudes of 9000 and 5000 
feet, because the rains of the monsoons begin to be felt in 
this region, which unites the plants of both. Here the scarlet 
and other rhododendrons grow luxuriantly ; walnuts, and at 
least ten species of oak, attain a great size, one of which, the 
quercus seraicarpifolia, has a clean trunk from 80 to 100 feet 
high. Geraniums, labiate plants, are mixed in sheltered 
spots with the tropical genera of scitaminese, or the ginger 
tribe; bignonias and balsams, and camelias, grow on the 
lower part of this region. 

It is remarkable that Indian, European, American and Chi-- 
nese forms are united in this zone of transition, though the 
distinctness of species still obtains: the triosteum, a genus 
of the honeysuckle tribe, is American ; the abelia, another 
genus of the same, together with the camelia and tricyrtis, 
are peculiarly Chinese ; the daisy and wild thyme are Euro- 
pean. A few of the trees and plants mentioned descend 
below the altitude of 5000 feet, but they soon disappear on 
the hot declivities of the mountain, where the erythrina, mo- 
nosperma, and bombex heptaphyllura, are the most common 
trees, together with the millingtonea^, a tribe of large timber 
trees, met with everywhere between the Himalaya and 10° 
north latitude. The shorea robusta, dalbergia, and cedrela, 
a genus allied to mahogany, are the most common trees in 
the forests of the lower regions of these mountains. 

The temperate regions of eastern Asia, including Chinese 
Tartary, China, and Japan, have a vegetation totally diiferent 
from that of any other part of the globe similarly situated, 
and shows in a strong point of view the distinct character 
which vegetation assumes in different longitudes. In Mand- 
shuria and the vast mountain-chains that slope from the eas- 
tern extremity of the high Tartarian table-land to the fertile 
plains in China, the forests and flora are generally of Euro- 
pean genera, but Asiatic species ; in tliese countries the buck- 
thorn and honeysuckle tribes are so numerous as to give a 
peculiar character to the vegetation. 

The transition zone in this country lies between the 35th 
and 27th parallels of north latitude, in which the tropical 
flora is mixed with that of the northern provinces. The 



FLORA OF ASIA. 251 

prevailing plants on the Chinese low grounds are glycyne, 
hortensia, the camphor laurel, stillingia sebifera, or wax tree, 
clerodendron, hibiscus, sinensis, thuiaorientalis, oleafragrans, 
the sweet blossoms of which are mixed with the finer teas 
to give them flavour ; melia azedarach, or Indian pride, the 
paper mulberry, and others of the genus, and camelia sasan- 
qua, which covers hills in the province of Kiong-si. The 
tea-plant, and other species of camelia, grow in many parts ; 
the finest tea is the produce of a low range of hills between 
the 30th and 32d parallels, an offset from the great chain 
of Peling. The tea-plant is not confined to China, it grows 
on the mountains of Assam, and as some species of the 
camelia tribe are indigenous in the temperate regions of the 
Himalaya, it might probably be cultivated in that range. 

The climate of Japan is milder than its latitude would 
indicate, owing to the influence of the surrounding ocean. 
European forms prevail in the high lands, as they do gene- 
rally throughout the mountains of Asia and the Indian Archi- 
pelago, with the difference of species, as abies cembra, 
strobus, and larix. The Japanese flora is similar to the 
Chinese, arid there are 30 American plants, besides others 
of Indian and tropical climates. These islands, neverthe- 
less, have their own peculiar flora, distinct in its nature ; as 
the saphora,corchorus, aukuba, mespilus, and pyrus Japonica, 
rhus vernix, oralis cordata, the anise tree, daphne odorata, 
the soap tree, various species of the calecanthus tribe, the 
custard apple, the khair mimosa, which yields the catechu, 
the leechee, the sweet orange, the cycas revoluta, a plant 
resembling a dwarf palm, with various other fruit. Many 
tropical plants mingle with the vegetation of the cocoa-nut 
and fan-palms. 

Thus the vegetation in Japan and China is widely different 
from that in the countries bordering the Mediterranean, 
though between the same parallels of latitude. In the 
tropical regions of Asia, where heat and moisture are ex- 
cessive, the influence of latitude vanishes altogether, and 
the peculiarities of the vegetation in different longitudes be- 
come more evident. 



252 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTER XXIIL 

FLORA OF TROPICAL ASIA OF THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO, 

INDIA, AND ARABIA. 

Tropical Asia is divided by nature into three distinct 
botanical regions: the Malayan peninsula with the Indian 
Archipelago ; India, south of the Himalaya, with the island 
of Ceylon ; and the Arabian peninsula. The two first have 
strong points of resemblance, though their floras are peculiar. 

FLORA OF THE INDO-CHINESE PENINSULA AND 
THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 

Many of the vegetable productions of the peninsula beyond 
the Ganges are the same with those of India, mixed with 
the plants of the Indian Archipelago, so that this country is 
a region of transition, though it has a splendid vegetation of 
innumerable native productions, dyes of the most vivid hues, 
spices, medicinal plants, and many with the sweetest per- 
fume. The soil in many places yields three crops in the 
year ; the fruit of India, and most of those of China, come 
to perfection in the low lands. The areng palm is peculiarly 
characteristic of the Malayan peninsula ; it yields sago and 
wine, is an ugly plant, covered with black fibres like coarse 
horse-hair, so strong that cordage is made of it. Teak is 
plentiful ; almost all that is used in Bengal comes from the 
Birman empire, though it is less durable than that of the 
Malabar coast. The hopoea odorata is so large that a canoe 
is made of a single trunk ; the cardonia integrifolia is held 
in such veneration that every Birman house has a beam 
of it. 

There are seven species of native oak in the forests ; the 
mimosa catechu, which furnishes the terra japonica used in 
medicine ; the trees which produce varnish and stick-lac ; 
the glyphyrea nitida, a myrtle, the leaves of which are used 
as tea in Bencoolen, called by the natives the tree of long 



FLORA OF TROPICAL ASIA. 253 

life. The coasts are wooded by the heriliera robusta, a 
large tree which thrives within reach of the tide ; bamboos 
with stems a foot and a half in diameter grow in dense 
thickets in the low lands. The palmyra palm and theborassus 
flabelliformis grow in extensive groves in the valley of the 
Irawaddie : it is a magnificent tree, often 100 feet high, re- 
markable for its gigantic leaves, one of which would shelter 
twelve men, - . 

The anomalous trees, the zaraas and cycades, somewhat 
like a palm with large pinnated leaves, but of a different 
genus, are found here and in tropical India ; those in America 
are of a different species. Orchideae and tree-ferns are in- 
numerable in the woody. districts of the peninsula. 

The vegetation of the Indian Archipelago is gorgeous 
beyond description ; although in many instances it bears a 
strong analogy to that of the Malayan peninsula, tropical 
India, and Ceylon, still it is in an eminent degree peculiar. 
The height of the mountains causes variety in the temperature 
sufficient to admit of the growth of dammer pines, oaks, rho- 
dodendrons, magnolias, valerians, honey-suckles, bilberries, 
gentians, oleasters, and other European orders of woody and 
herbaceous, plants ; yet there is not one species in common. 
■Jungle and dense pestilential woods entirely cover the 
smaller islands and the plains of the larger ; the coasts are 
lined with thickets of mangroves, a matted vegetation of 
forest trees, palms, bamboos, and coarse grass, entwined 
with climbing, and creeping plants, and overgrown by or- 
chideous parasites in myriads. The forest trees of the Indian 
Archipelago are almost unknown ; teak and many of the 
continental trees grow there, but. the greater number are 
peculiarly^ their own. The naturalist Rumphius had a 
cabinet inlaid with 400 kinds of wood, the produce of 
Amboyna and the Molucca Islands.. 

Supaatra, Java, and the adjacent islands, are the region 
of the caryota urens and of the dryobalanops camphora of 
the laurel tribe, in the stems of which solid lumps of camphor 
are found. All the trees of that order, and of several others, 
are peculiar to these islands, and 78 species of trees and 
shrubs of the raelastoma tribe grow there and in continental 
India. There are thickets of the sword-leaved vaquois tree 
and of the pandanus or screw-pine, a plant resembling the 
22 



254 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

anana, with a Iplossom like that of a bulrush, very odoriferous, 
and in some species edible. 

This is the region of spices, which are very limited in their 
distribution : the myristica moschata, the nutmeg, and mace- 
plant, is confined to the Banda Islands, but it is said to have 
been discovered lately in New Guinea. The Amboyna 
group is the focus of the caryophyllus aromaticus, a myrtle, 
the buds of which are known as cloves. Various species of 
cinnamon and cassia, both of the laurel tribe, together with 
varieties of pepper, different from those in India and Ceylon, 
grow in this archipelago. Some of the most excellent fruits 
are indigenous here only, as the dourio, the ayer ayer, 
langsat, the choapa of Molucca, peculiar kinds of orange, 
lemon, and citron, with others knowji only by name else- 
where. Those common to the continent of India are the 
jam- rose, rose- apple, jack, various species of bread-fruit, 
mango, mangosteen, and the banana, which is luxuriant. 

Here the nettle tribe assume the most pernicious character, 
as the upas free of Java, one of the most deadly vegetable 
poisons, and even the plants resembling our commori nettle, 
are so acrid that the sting of one in Java occasions not only 
pain but illness, which lasts for days. A nettle in the island 
of Timor, called by the natives the " Devil's leaf," is so 
poisonous that it produces long illness anil even death. The 
chelik, a shrub growing in the dense forests, produces a 
poison even more deadly than the upas. Some of the fig 
genus, which belongs also to the natural order of nettles, 
have acrid juices. Trees of the cashew tribe have a milky 
sap : the fine japan lacquer is made from the juice of the 
stagmaria verniciflua. Palms are very splendid here, gene- 
rally of peculiar species and limited in their distribution, as 
the nissa and Barringtonia. No country is richer in club- 
mosses and orchideous plants, which overrun the trees in 
thousands in the d.eep dark mountain-forests, choked bj 
huge creeping plants, an undergrowth of gigantic grasses, 
through which not a ray of light penetrates. 

Sir Stamford Raffles describes the vegetation of Java as 
" fearful." In these forests the air is heavy, charged with 
dank and deadly vapours, never agitated by a breath of 
wind ; the soil, of the deepest black vegetable mould, always 
moist and clammy, stimulated by the fervid heat of a tropi- 
cal sun, produces trees whose stems are of a spongy texture 



FLORA OF INDIA, 255 

from their rapid growth, loaded with parasites, particularly 
the orchideous tribe, of which no less than 300 species are 
peculiar- to that island. Tree-ferns are in the proportion of 
one to twenty of the other plants, and form a large portion 
of the vegetation of Java and all these islands ; and there 
are above 200 tropical species of club-mosses growing to 
the height of three feet, whereas in cold countries they creep 
on the ground. 

The Rafflesia, of which there are four genera, are the 
most singular productions of this archipelago. The most 
extraordinary is common to Java and Sumatra, where it was 
discovered l3y Mr. Arnold, and therefore is called Rafflesia 
Arnoldi. It is a parasitical plant, with buds the size of an 
ordinary cabbage, and the flower, which smells of carrion, 
is of a brick-red colour, three feet and a half in diameter: 
that fouad by Mr.' Arnold weighed fifteen pounds, and the 
cup in its centre could contain twelve pints of liquid. 

According to Sir Stamford Raffles there are six distinct 
climates. in Java, from the top of the mountains to the sea, 
each having an extensive indigenous vegetation. No other 
country can show an equal abundance and variety of native 
fruit and esculent vegetables. There are iOO varieties of rice, 
and of fragrant flowers, shrubs, and ornamental trees the 
number is infinite. Abundant as the orchidese are in Java, 
Ceylon, and the Burmese empire, these countries possess 
very few that are common to them all, so local is their dis- 
tribution. Ferns are more plentiful in this archipelago than 
elsewhere : tree-ferns are found chiefly between or near the 
tropics, in airless damp places. 



INDIAN FLORA. 

The plains of Hindostan are so completely sheltered from 
the Siberian blasts by the high table-lands of Tartary and 
the Himalaya Mountains, that the vegetation at the foot of 
that range already assumes a tropical character. In thejun- 
gles and lower ridges of the fertile valley of Nepal, and on 
the dark and airless recesses of the Silhet forests, arbores- 
cent ferns and orchideous plants are found in profusion, 
scarcely surpassed even in the islands of the Indian Archi- 
pelago — indeed the mar-shy Tariyane is full of them. The 



256 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

lowest ranges of the HiifiMaya, the pestilential swamp of the 
Tariyane, the alluvial ridges of the hills that bound it on the 
south, and many parts of the plains of the Ganges, are covered 
with primeval forests, which produce whole orders of large 
timber trees, frequently over-run with parasitical loranthe. 

The native fruit of India are many; the orange tribe is 
almost all of Indian origin, though some of the species are 
now widely spread over the warmer parts of the other con- 
tinents and the more distant countries of Asia. Two or three 
species are peculiar to Madagascar; one is found in the 
forests of the Essequibo and another in Brazil, which are 
the only exceptions known. The limonia laureola grows on 
the tops of the high Asiatic mountains, which are covered 
with snow several months in the year ; and the warapee, a 
fruit much esteemed in China and the Indian Archipelago, 
is produced by a species of this order. The vine grows 
wild in the forests; plantain, banana, jararose, guava, 
jnango, mangosteen, date, areca, palmyra, cocoa-nut, and 
gameto-palms are all Indian^ also the gourd family. The 
Scitaminse, or ginger-tribe, are so numerous, that they form 
a distinguishing and beautiful feature of Indian botany : they 
produce ginger, cardamoms, and turmeric. The flowers 
peculiar to India are brilliant in colours, but generally with- 
out odour, except the rose and some jessamines.. 

The greater part of the trees and plants mentioned belong 
also to tropical India, where vegetation is still more' 'luxu- 
riant ; a large portion of that magnificent country, contain- 
ing 1,000,000 square miles, has been cultivated time imme- 
jmorial, although vast tracts still remain In a state of nature. 
Those extensive mountain-chains which traverse and sur- 
round the Deccan are rich in primeval forests of stupendous 
.growth with dense underwood. The most remarkaible of 
these trees are the Indian cotton-tree and the dombeya, 
which is of the same order ; that which produces the Trin- 
cbmalee wood, used for building boats at Madras; the red- 
wood tree, peculiar to the Coromandel coast, the satin-wood, 
the superb butea frondosa, the agallshium tribe, which yields 
the odorous wood of aloes mentioned in' Scripture, the mela- 
leuca leucadendron and the.melaleuca cujapute, from which 
the oil is pr.epared'. The dragon-t'ree is a native of India, 
though not exclusively, as some of tlfe best specimens grow 
in the Azores and Madagascar, where it is planted for 



FLORA OF INDIA. 257 

hedges. Sanders-wood and dragon's-blood are obtained 
from the pterocarpus sandalinus and draco ; the sappan-tree 
gives a purple dye: these are all of the leguminous or bean 
tribe, of which there are 452 Indian species : ebony grows 
in these tropical regions, in Mauritius, and the south coast 
of Africa. 

Some of the fig tribe are among the most remarkable 
vegetable productions of India for gigantic size and pecu- 
liarity of form, which renders them valuable in a hot cli- 
mate from the shade which their broad-spreading tops afford. 
Some throw of!" shoots from their branches, which take root 
on reaching the ground, and after increasing in girth wath 
wonderful rapidity, produce branches which also descend to 
form new roots, and. this process is continued till a forest is 
formed round the parent tree. -Mr. Reinwardt saw in the 
island of Simao a large wood of the ficus Benjamina which 
sprung from one stem. The ficus Indicus, or banyan tree, 
is another instance of this wide-spreading growth ; it is 
found in the islands, but is in greatest perfection around the 
villages in the Circar mountains. The camphor genus is 
mostly Indian, as well as many more of the laurel tribe of 
great size. The banana is the most generally useful tree in 
this country ; its fruit is food, its leaves are applied to many 
domestic purposes, and flax fit for making muslin is obtained 
from its stem. 

Palms, the most stately and graceful of the vegetable pro- 
ductions of tropical regions, are abundant in India, in forests, 
in groups, and in single trees. Some species grow at the limit 
of perpetual snow, some 900 feet above the sea, others in 
valleys and on the shores of the continent and islands. 
They decrease in number and variety as the latitude in- 
creases, and terminate at Nice, iff-44° N., lat., their limit in 
the great continent. The leaves of some are of gigantic 
size, and all are beautiful, varying in height from the slen- 
der calamus rudentum, 500 feet high, to the chamserops 
humilis, not more than 15 or 20. Different species yield 
wine, oil, wax, flour, sugar, thread, and rope ; weapons and 
utensils are made of their stems and leaves ; they serve for 
the construction of houses ; the cocoa-nut palm gives food 
and drink ; sago is made from all except the areca catechu, 
the fruit of which, the betel-nut, is used by the natives for 
its intoxicating quality. A few of the species are widely 
22* 



■258 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

spread, for example the cocoa-nut palm, though they are in 
general very limited in their cHstributioa. 

The island of Ceylon, which may be regarded as the 
southernmost extremity of the Indian peninsula, is very 
mountainous, and rivals the islands of the Indian Archi- 
pelago in luxuriance/of vegetable productions, and in some 
respects bears a strong resemblance to them. The laurel, 
the bark of which is cinnamon, is indigenous, and one of 
the principal sources of the revenue of Ceylon. The taleput 
leaves of the areca palm are of such enormous size, that they 
are applied to many uses by the Cingalese : in ancient times 
stripes of the leaf were written upon with a sharp style, and 
served as books. The sandal-wood of Ceylon is of a dif- 
ferent species from that of the South Sea Islands, and its 
perfume more esteemed. Indigo is indigenous, and so is 
the cboya, whose roots give a scarlet dye. The mountains 
produce a great variety T)f beautiful woods used in cabinet- 
work. It is a remarkable circumstance in the distribution 
of plants, that the orchidea? are very numerous in this island., 
and that there should be none in the Indian peninsula. 



ARABIAN VEGETATION. 

The third division of the tropical flora of Asia is the 
Arabian, whicli differs widely from the other two, and is 
chiefly marked by trees yielding balsams. Oceans of barren 
sand extend to the south, from Syria through the greater 
part of Arabia, varied only by occasional oases in those 
spots where a spring of water has reached the surface ; there 
the prevalent vegetation consists of the grasses, holcus and 
panicum dicotomum growing under the shade of the date- 
palm ; mimosas and stunted prickly bushes appear here and 
there in the sand. There is verdure on the mountains, and 
along some of the coasts, especially in the province, of 
Yemen, which has a flora of its own, and is the native country 
of coffee, which is now cultivates! over half the globe. 
Most of the coffee used is the progeny of a single plant 
brought from Mocha to the botanic garden at Amsterdam, 
by Van Hoorn, the governor of Batavia, in the year 1718. 
Plants w^ere sent to Surinam, from whence they spread 
rapidly over the warm parts of America and the West 



FLORA OF AFRICA. 259 

Indian Islands. The keura odorifera, a superb tree, with 
agreeable perfume, eight species of figs, the three species of 
amyris gileadensis, or balm of Gilead, opobalsamum also 
yielding balsam, and the kataf, from which myrrh is sup- 
posed to come, are peculiar to Arabia. Frankincense is said 
to be the produce of the Boswellia serrata ; and there are 
many species of acacia, among others the acacia arabica, 
which produces gum arable. The arak and tamarind tr^es 
connect the botany of Arabia with that of the West Indies, 
while it is connected with that of the Cape of Good Hope 
by Stapelias, meserabryanthemums, and liliaceous flowers. 
The character of Arabian vegetation, like that of other dry 
hot climates, consists in its odoriferous plants and flowers. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



AFRICAN FLORA FLpRA OF AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, NOR- 
FOLK ISLAND, AND OF POLYNESIA. 

The northern coast of Africa, and the range of the Atlas 
generally, may be regarded as a zone of transition, where 
the plants ofsouthern Europe are mingled with those pecu- 
liar to the country ; half the plants of northern Africa are 
also found in the other countries on the shores of the Medi- 
terranean. Of 60 trees and 248 shrubs, which grow there, 
100 only are peculiar to Africa, and about 18 of these 
belong to its tropical flora. There are about six times as 
many herbaceous plants as there are trees and shrubs ; and 
in the Atlas Mountains, as in other chains, the perennial 
plants are much more numerous than annuals. Evergreens 
predominate, and are the same as those on the other -shores 
■ of the Mediterranean. The pomegranate, the locust-tree, the 
oleander, and the palmetto abound ; and the cistus tribe 
give g, distinct character to the flora. The sandarach, or 
thuia articulata, peculiar to the northern side of the Atlas 
Mountains and to Cyrenaica, yields close-grained hard tim- 
ber, used for the ceiling of mosques, and is supposed to be 
the shittim-wood of Scripture. The Atlas produces seven 
or eight species of oak, various pines, especially the pinus 
maritima, and forests of the Aleppo pine in Algiers. The 



260 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

sweet-scented arboresoent heath and erica scoparia are native 
here, also in the Canary Islands and the Azores, where the 
tribe of house-leeks characterizes the botany. There are 
534 phanerogamous plants, or such as have the parts of 
fructification evident, in the Canary Islands ; the pinus ca- 
narienses is peculiar, and also the dracoenae, which grow in 
perfection here. The stem of the draccena draco, of the 
Villa Oratavas in Teneriffe, measures 46 feet in circumfe- 
rence at the base of the tree, which is 75 feet high. It is 
known to have been an object of great antiquity in the year 
1402^ and is still aliye, bearing blossoms and fruit. If it 
be not an instance of the partial location of plants, there 
must have been intercourse between India and the Canary 
Islands in very ancient times. 

Plants with bluish-green succulent leaves are character- 
istic of tropical Africa and its islands ; and though the group 
of the Canaries has plants in common with Spain, Portugal, 
Africa, and the Azores, yet there are many species, and 
even genera, which are found in them only ; and the height 
of the mountains causes much variety in the vegetation. 

On the continent, south of the Atlas, a great change of 
soil and climate takes place ; the drought on the borders of 
the desert is so excessive that no trees can resist it, rain 
hardly ever falls, and the scorching blasts from the south 
speedily dry up any moisture that may exist; yet in conse- 
quence of what descends from the mountains, the date-palm 
forms large forests along their base, which supply the inhabi- 
tants with food, and give sheJter to crops which could not 
otherwise grow. Stunted plants are the only produce of the 
desert, yet large tracts are covered with the pehnisetum 
dichotomum, a harsh prickly grass, which, together with the 
alhagi maurosin, are the food of camels. 

The plants peculiar to Egypt are acacias, mimosas, cassias, 
tamarisks, the lotus nymphaea, the blue lotus, the papyrus, 
from which probably the first substance used for writing 
upon was made, and has left its name to that we now use : 
also the ziziphus or jujub, various rhesembryanthemums, 
and most of the plants of Barbary grow here. The date- 
palm is not found higher on the Nile than Thebes, where it 
gives place to the doom-palm, or crucifera Thebaica, pecu- 
liar to this district, and singular as being the only palm that 
has a branched stem. 



FLOBA OF AFRICA. 261 

TTie eastern side of equatorial Africa is less known than 
the western, but the floras of the two countries, under the 
same latitude, have little affinity ; on the eastern side the 
rubiaceae, the euphorbias, a race peculiarly African, and 
the malviacese, are most frequent. The genera danais 
of the cofTea tribe distinguish the vegetation of Abyssinia, 
also the dombeya, the senaceas, a species of vine, various 
jessamines, a beautiful species of honey-suckle ; and Bruce 
says the caper-tree grows to the height of the elm, with 
white blossoms, and fruit as large as a peach. The daroo, 
or ficus sycamoris, and the arak tree, are native. The 
kollquall, or euphorbia antiquorum, grows 40 feet high on 
the plain of Baharnagach, in the form of an elegant branched 
candelabrum, covered with scented fruit, - The kantutfa, or 
thorny shrub, is so great a nuisance from its spines, that even 
animals avoid it. The erythrina Abyssinica bears a poison- 
ous red bean with a black spot, used by the Shangalla and 
other tribes for ages, as a weight for gold, and by the women 
as necklaces. Mr. Rochet has lately brought some seeds of 
new grain from Shoa, that are likely to be a valuable addi- 
tion to European cerealia. 

The vegetation of tropical Africa, on the west, is known 
only along the coast, where some affinity with that of' India 
may be observed. It consists of 573 species of flower- bearing 
plants, and is distinguished by a remarkable uniformity, not 
only in orders and genera, but even in species, from the 16° 
of north latitude to the river Congo in 6° of south latitude. 
The most prevalent are the grasses and bean tribes, the 
cyperaceae, rubiaceae, and the compositas. The Adamsonia, 
or boabab of Senegal, is one of the most extraordinary vege- 
table productions ; the stem is sometimes 34 feet in diameter, 
though the tree is rarely more than 50 or 60 feet high ; it 
covers the sandy plains so entirely with its umbrella-shaped 
top, that a forest of these trees presents a compact surface, 
which at some distance seems to be a green field. Cape 
Verde has its name from the numbers that conceal the barren 
soil under their spreading tops : some of them are very old, 
and, with the dragon-tree at Teneriffe, are supposed to be 
the most ancient vegetable inhabitants of the earth. The 
pandanus candelabrum, instead of Sfro wins: crowded together 
in masses like the boabab, stands solitary on the equatorial 
plains, with its lofty forked branches ending in tufts oF long 



262 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

stiff' leaves. Numerous sedges, of which the papyrus is the 
most remarkable, give a character to this region, and cover 
boundless plains waving in the wind like corn-fields, while 
other places are overgrown by forests of gigantic grasses 
with branching stems. 

A rich vegetation, consisting of impenetrable thickets of 
mangrove, the poisonous manchineel, and many large tre,es, 
cover the deltas of the rivers, and even grow so far into the 
water, that their trunks are coated with shell-fish, but the 
pestilential exhalations render it almost certain death to 
botanize in this luxuriance of nature. 

Various trees of the soap and sapodilla tribes are peculiar 
to Africa-; the butter-tree, of the enterprising but unfortunate 
Mungo Park, the star apple, the cream fruit, the custard 
apple, and the water vine, are plentiful in Senegal and 
Sierra Leone. The safu and -bread-fruit of Polynesia are 
represented here by the rausanga, a large tree of the nettle 
tribe, the fruit of which has the. flavour of the hazel-nut. A 
few pahns have very local habitations, as the elais Gui- 
neensis, found on that coast. That graceful tribe is less 
varied in species in equatorial Africa than in the other con- 
tinents. 

The flora of south Africa differs entirely from that of the 
northern and tropical zones, and as widely from that of every 
other country, with the exception of Australia atid some 
parts of Chili. The soil of the table-land at the Cape of 
Good Hope, stretching to an unknown distance, and of the 
Karoo plains and valleys between the mountains, is some- 
times gravelly, but more frequently is com[)Osed of sand and 
clay ; in summer it is dry and parched, and most of its rivers 
are dried up ; it bears but a few stunted shrubs, some suc- 
culent plants and mimosas along the margin of the river 
courses. The sudden effect of rain on the parched ground 
is like magic ; it. is recalled to life, and in a short time is 
decked with a beautiful and peculiar vegetation, compre- 
hending, more than any other country, numerous and dis- 
tinctly defined foci of genera and species. 

Twelve thousand species of plants have been collected in 
the colony of the Cape, in an extent of country about equal 
to Germany. Of these heaths and proteas are two very con- 
spicuous tribes; there are 300 species of the former, and 
200 of the latter, both of which have nearly the same limited 



FLORA OF AFRICA. 263 

range, though Mr. Bunbury found two heaths, and the protea 
cynaroidesT, the most splendid of the fanoily, bearing a flower 
the size of a man's hat, on the hills round Graham's Town, 
in the eastern part of the colony. These two tribes of plants 
are so limited that there is not one of either to be seen north 
of the mountains which bound the Great Karoo, and by 
much the greatest number of them grow within 100 miles of 
Cape Town ; indeed at the distance of only 40 miles the 
prevailing proteaceae are different from those at the Cape. 
The leucadendroT) argentum, or silver tree, which forms 
groves at the back of the Table-mountain, is confined to the 
peninsula of the Cape. The beautiful disa grandiflora is 
found only in one particular place on the top of the Table- 
mountain. 

The dry sand of the west coast and the country northward 
through many degrees of latitude is the native habitation of 
stapelias, succulent plants with square leafless stems and 
flowers like star-fish, with the smell of carrion. A great 
portion of the eastern frontier of the Cape colony and the ad- 
jacent districts are covered with extensive thickets of a strong 
succulent and thorny vegetation, called by the natives the 
bush : similar thickets occur again far to the west, on the 
banks of tiie river Gauritz. The most common plants of the 
bush are aloes of many species, all exceedingly fleshy and 
some beautiful ; the great red-flowering arborescent aloe, 
and some others, make a conspicuous figure in the eastern 
part of the colony. Other characteristic plants of the eastern 
districts are the spek-boem, or portulacaria afra, schotia spe- 
ciosa, and the great succulent euphorbias, which grow into 
real trees 40 feet high, branching like a candelabrum, en- 
tirely leafless, prickly, anil with a very acrid juice. The 
euphorbia meloformis, whose bulb, three feet in diameter, lies 
on the ground, to which it is attached by slender fibrous roots, 
is confined to the mountains of Graaf Reynet. Euphorbias, 
in the Old World, correspond with the cactus tribe, which 
belong exclusively to the New. The zamia, a singular plant, 
having the appearance of a dwarf-palm without any real 
similarity of structure, belongs to the eastern districts, espe- 
cially to the great tract of bush on the Catfir frontier. 

Various species of acacia are indigenous and much circum- 
scribed in their location : the acacia horrida, or the white- 
thorned acacia, is very common in the eastern districts and 



264 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

in Caffirland. The acacia cafra is strictly eastern, growing 
along the margins of rivers, to which it is a great ornament. 
The acacia detinens, or hook-thorn, is almost peculiar to 
Zand valley. 

It appears from the instances mentioned, that the vegeta- 
tion in the eastern districts of the colony differs from that on 
the western, yet many plants are generally difTused of orders 
and genera found only in this part of Africa. Nearly all the 
300 species of the fleshy succulent tribe of mesembryanthe- 
raum, or Hottentot's fig ; all the oxalis, or wood-sorrel tribe^ 
except three in France and one in America; every species 
of gladiolus, with the exception of that in the corn-fields in 
Italy and France ; ixias innumerable, one with petals of apple- 
green colour; geraniums, especially the genus pelargonium, 
or stork's bill, almost peculiar to this locality ; many varie- 
ties of gnaphalium and xeranthemum ; the brilliant strelitzia; 
133 species of the house-leek tribe, all fleshy and leafless, 
attached to the soil by a single wiry root, and nourished from 
the atmosphere ; diosmas are widely scattered in great va- 
riety ; shrubby boragines with flowers of vivid colours, and 
orchidese with large and showy blossoms. The leguminous 
plants and the crucifera^ of the Cape are peculiar ; indeed all 
the vegetation has a distinct character, and both genera and 
species are confined within narrower limits than anywhere 
else, without any apparent cause to account for a dispersion 
so arbitrary. 

Notwithstanding the peculiarity of character with which 
the botany of the Cape is so distinctly marked, it is connected 
with that of very remote countries by particular plants ; for 
example, of the seven species of bramble which grow at the 
Cape, one is the common English bramble or blackberry. 
The aflBnity with New Holland is greater; in portions of the 
two countries in the same latitude there are severaF genera 
and species that are identical : proteas are common to both, 
so are several genera of iridese, leguminosse, ficoideffi, myr- 
tacese, Banksias,.. diosmas, and some others. The botany of 
the Cape is connected with that of India, and even that of 
South America, by a few congeners. 

The vegetation of Madagascar, though similar in many re- 
spects to the floras of India and Africa, nevertheless is its 
own: the brexiaceae and chlenacese are orders found nowhere 
else; there are species of bignonia, cycades, and zamias, a 



FLORA OF AUSTRALIA. 265 

few of the raangosteen tribe, and in the mountains some 
heaths. The hydrogelan fenestralis is a singular aquatic plant, 
with leaves like the dried skeletons of Jeav^es, having no 
green fleshy substance, and the tanghinia veneniflua, which 
produces a poison so deadly that its seeds are used to exe- 
cute criminals, and one seed is sufficient. 

Some genera and species are common and peculiar to 
Madagascar, the Isle of Bourbon, and Mauritius; yet of the 
161 known genera in Madagascar only 54 grow on the other 
two islands. The three islands are rich in ferns. The pan- 
danus, or screw-pine genus, abounds in Bourbon and the 
Mauritius, where it covers sandy plains, sending off strong 
aerial roots from the stem, which strike into the ground and 
protect the plant from the violent w^inds. Of 290 genera in 
Bourbon and Mauritius, 196 also grow in India, though the 
species are different: there is also some resemblance to the 
vegetation of South Africa, and there is a solitary genus in 
common with America. 

Eight or ten degrees north of Madagascar lies the group 
of the Seychelles Islands, in which are groves of the pecu- 
liar palm which bears the double cocoanut, or coco de mer, 
the growth of these islands only. It.^ gigantic leaves are 
employed in the construction of houses, and other parts of 
the plant are applied to various domestic purposes. 



FLORA OF AUSTRALIA. 

The interior of the Aastralian continent is so little known, 
that the flora which has come under observation is confined 
to a short distance from the coast; but it is of so strange and 
unexampled a character, that it might easily be mistaken for 
the production of another planet. Many entire orders of 
plants are known only in Australia, and the genera and spe- 
cies of others that grow elsewhere, assume new and singular 
forms. Evergreens, with hard narrow leaves of a sombre', 
melancholy hue, are prevalent, and there are whole shadow- 
less forests of leafless trees, the foot stalks dilated and set 
edgewise on the stem supply their place and perform the func- 
tions of nutrition : their inverted position gives them a sin- 
gular appearance. Plants in other countries have glands on 
the under side of the leaves, but in Australia there are glands 
23 



266 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

on both sides of these substitutes for leaves, which make them 
dull and lustreless, and the changes of the seasons have no 
influence on the unvarying olive-green of the Australian 
forests ; even the grassesare separated from the graminese of 
other countries by a remarkable rigidity. Torres Straits, only 
50 miles broad, separates this dry, sombre vegetation from 
the luxuriant jungle-clad shores of New Guinea, where deep 
and dark forests are rich in more than the usual tropical exu- 
berance — a more complete and sudden change can hardly be 
imagined. 

The peculiarly Australian vegetation is in the southern 
part of the continent of New Holland distributed in distinct 
foci in the same latitude, a circumstance of which the pro- 
teas afford a remarkable instance. Nearly one-half of the 
known species of these beautiful shrubs grow in the parallel 
of Port Jackson, from which they decrease in number both 
to tlie south and the north. In that latitude, however, there 
are twice as many species on the eastern side of the conti- 
nent as there are on the western, and four times as many as 
in the centre. Although the proteas at both extremities of 
the continent have all the characters peculiar to Australia, 
yet those on the eastern coast resemble the South American 
species, while those on the western side have a resemblance 
to African forms, and are confined to the same latitudes. 

Species of this genus are numerous in Van Diemen's Land, 
where they thrive at the elevation of .3500 feet, and also on 
the plains. The myrtle tribe form a conspicuous feature in 
Australian vegetation, particularly the genera eucalyptus, 
■melaleuca, podocarpus and others, with splendid blossoms, 
white, purple, yellow, crimson : 100 species of the eucalypti, 
most of them large trees, grow in New Holland ; they form 
great forests in the colony of Port Jackson. The leafless aca- 
cias, of which there are 93 specie-s, are a prominent feature 
in the Australian landscape. The leaves, except in very 
young plants, are merely foliaceous foot stalks, presenting 
their margin towards the stem, yet these and the eucalypti 
are the most leafy trees in the country. The genus casua- 
rina, with its strange-jointed, drooping branches, called the 
march oak, holds a conspicuous place: they are chiefly con- 
fined to the principal parallel of this vegetation, and produce 
excellent timber ; they grow also in the Malayan peninsula 
and South Sea Islands. The oxieya xanthoxyla, or yellow 



FLORA OF AUSTRALIA. 267 

wood, one of the cedar tribe, grows to great size, and the po- 
docarpus asplenifolia forms a new genus of the cone-bearing 
trees. Some of the nettle tribe grow 15 or even 20 feet high. 
The epacridese, with scarlet, rose, and white blossoms, sup- 
ply the place of heaths, which do not exist here. The pur- 
ple-flowering tremandreee, the yellow-flowering dillenia, the 
doryanthis excelsa, the most splendid of the lily tribe, 24 
feet high, with a brilliant crimson blossom, the Banksia, the 
most Australian of all the proteas, with zamias of new spe- 
cies, are all conspicuous in the vegetation of Port Jackson. 

There is a change on the eastern coast of New Holland. 
The castanospermum Australe is so plentiful that it furnishes 
the principal food of the natives ; a caper-tree of grotesque 
form, having the colossal dimensions of the Senegal boabab, 
and extraordinary trees of the fig genus, characterize this 
region. It sometimes occurs, when the seeds of these fig- 
trees are deposited by birds on the iron-bark tree, or euca- 
lyptus resinifera, that they vegetate and inclose the trunk of 
the tree entirely with their roots, whence they send oflT 
enormous lateral branches, which so completely envelop the 
tree, that at last its top alone is visible in the centre of the 
fig-tree, at the height of 70 or 80 feet. The pandanus genus 
flourishes within the influence of the sea-air. There are only 
six species of palms, equally local in their habitation as else- 
where, not one of which grows on the west side^of the con- 
tinent. The araucaria excelsa, or Norfolk Island pine, pro- 
duces the best timber of any tree in this part of Australia : 
it extends from the parallel of 29° on the east coast towards 
the equator, and grows over an area of 900 square miles, 
including New Norfolk, New Caledonia, and other islands, 
some of which have no other timber tree : it is supposed to 
exist only within the influence of the sea. The asphodelia 
abound and extend to the southern extremity of Van Die- 
men's Land. 

The south-western districts of New Holland exhibit an- 
other focus of vegetation, less rich in species than that of 
Port Jackson, but not less peculiar. The Kingia Australis, 
or grass-tree, rises solitary on the sandy plains, with bare 
blackened trunks as if scathed by lightning, and tufts oi 
long grasi^y leaves at their extremities ; Banksias, particu- 
larly the kind called wild honeysuckle, are numerous ; th( 
stylidum, whose blossoms are even more irritable than th( 



268 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

leaves of the sensitive mimosa, and plants with dry, ever- 
lasting blossom, characterize the flora of these districts. 
The greater part of the southern vegetation vanishes on the 
northern coasts of the continent, and what remains is min- 
gled with the cabbage-palm, various species of the nutmeg 
tribe, sandal-wood, and other Malayan forms, a circumstance 
that may hereafter be of importance to our colonists. 

Orchidese, chiefly terrestrial, are in great variety in the 
extratropical regions of New Holland, and the grasses amount 
to one-fourth of the monocotyledonous plants. Reeds of 
gigantic size form forests in the marshes, and kangaroo-grass 
covers the plains. 

Beautiful and varied as the flora is. New Holland is by 
no means luxuriant in vegetation. There is little appear- 
ance of verdure, the foliage is poor, the forests often shade- 
less, and the grass thin ; but in many valleys of the moun- 
tains, and even on some parts of the plains, the vegetation 
is vigorous. It is not the least remarkable circumstance in 
this extraordinary flora, that, with the exception of a few 
berries, there is no edible fruit, grain, or vegetable indige- 
nous either in New Holland or Van Diemen's Land. 

The plants of New Holland prevail in every part of Van 
Diemen's Land ; yet the coldness of the climate and the 
height of the mountains permit genera of the northern hemi- 
sphere to be mixed with the vegetation of the country. 
Butter-cups, anemonies, and polygonums of peculiar species 
grow on the mountain-tops, together with proteas and other 
Australian plants. The plains glow with the warm golden 
flowers of the black wattle, a mimosa emblematic of the 
island, and with the equally bright and orange blossom of 
the gorse, which perfumes the whole atmosphere. Only 
one tree-fern grows in this country : it rises 20 feet to the 
base of the fronds, which spread into an elegant top, pro- 
ducing a shadow gloomy as night- fall, and there are 150 spe- 
cies of orchis. The southern extremities both of New Hol- 
land and Van Diemen's Land are characterized by the pre- 
valence of evergreen plants: but the trees here, as well as 
in the other parts of the southern hemisphere, do not shed 
their leaves periodically as with us. 

The botany of New Zealand appears to be intimately 
allied to that of New Holland, South America, and South 
Africa, but chiefly to that of New Holland. Noble trees 



FLORA OF NEW ZEALAND. 269 

form impenetrable forests, sixty of which yield the finest 
timber, and many are of kinds to which we have nothing 
similar. Here there are no representatives of our oak, birch, 
or willow, but five species of beech and ten of pine have 
been discovered that are peculiar to the country. They are 
all alpine, and only descend to the level of the sea in the 
northern parts of the islands. The pines of the southern 
hemisphere are more local than in the northern ; of the ten 
species peculiar to New Zealand it is not certain that more 
than two or three are found in the middle island, or that any 
of them grow south of the 40th parallel. The Kauri pine, 
or dararaara australis, is indigenous in all the three islands, 
but it is the only cone-bearing tree in North Island, where 
it grows in hilly situations near the sea, shooting up with a 
clean stem 60 or 90 feet, sometimes 30 feet in diameter, with 
a spreading but thin top, and generally has a quantfty of 
transparent yellow resin imbedded at its base. This fine 
tree does not grow beyond the 38° S. lat. The metrosi- 
deros tomentosa, with rich crimson blossoms, is one of the 
greatest ornaments of the forests, and the metrosideros 
robusta the most singular. It grows to a very great size, 
and sends shoots from its trunk and branches to the ground, 
which become so massive that they support the old stem, 
which to all appearance loses its vitality ; it is in fact an 
enormous epiphyte, growing to and not from the ground. 
Many of the smaller trees are of the laurel tribe, with poi- 
sonous berries. Besides there is the cabbage palm, the areca 
sapida, elder, the fuchsia excortica, and other shrubs. Be- 
fore New Zealand was colonized, the natives lived chiefly 
on the roots of the edible fern, pteris esculenta, with which 
the country is densely covered, mixed with a shrub that 
grows like a cypress, and the tea-plant, which is a kind of 
myrtle whose berries afford an intoxicating^ liquor. More 
than 90 species of fern are natives of these islands, some of 
which are arborescent and 40 feet high ; the country is 
chiefly covered with these and with the New Zealand flax, 
phormium tenax, which grows abundantly both on the moun- 
tains and plains. 

In Norfolk Island 152 species of plants are already known, 

and many, no doubt, are yet to be discovered. The arau- 

caria excelsa and some palms are indigenous, and there are 

three times as many ferns as of all the other plants together. 

23* 



270 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The multitude of islands of Polynesia constitute a botani- 
cal region apart from all others, though it is but little varied, 
and characterized principally by the number of syngenesious 
plants with arborescent forms and tree-ferns. There are 50 
varieties of the bread-fruit, which produce three or four crops 
in the year, and supply the natives with food, clothing, and 
timber ; the cocoa-nut palm and the banana are on all the 
islands, and the pandanus, which thrives only when exposed 
to the sea-air. The tacca pinnatifida yields arrow-root ; an 
intoxicating liquor is made from the fruit of one of the dra- 
csena tribe, and the inner bark of the morus papyrifera is 
manufactured into cloth. Besides the cocoa-nut palm and 
pandanus, various trees grow on the coral islands, among 
others the fragrant suriana and the sweet-scented Tourne- 
fortia. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

AMERICAN VEGETATION FLORA OF NORTH, CENTRAL, AND 

SOUTH AMERICA ANTARCTIC FLORA MARINE VEGETA- 
TION. 

From similarity of physical circumstances the arctic flora of 
America bears a strong resemblance to that of the northern 
regions of Europe and Asia. This botanical district com- 
prises Greenland, and extends considerably to the south of 
the arctic circle, especially at the eastern and western epds 
of the continent, where it reaches the 60th parallel of N. 
lat., and even more; it is continued along the tops of the 
Rocky Mountains almost to Mexico, and it re-appears on 
the White Mountains and a few other parts of the Aliegha- 
nies. 

Greenland has a much more arctic flora than Iceland ; the 
valleys are entirely covered with mosses and marsh plants, 
and the gloomy rocks are cased in sombre lichens that grow 
under the snow, and the grasses on the pasture-grounds that 
line the fiords are nearly four times less varied than those of 
Iceland. In some sheltered spots the service-tree bears 
fruit, and birches grow to the height of a few feet ; but lig- 
neous plants in general trail on the ground. 



FLORA OF NORTH AMERICA. 271 

The arctic flora of America has much the same character 
with those of Europe and Asia, and many species are com- 
mon to all ; still more are representative, but there is a dif- 
ference in the vegetation at the two extremities of the con- 
tinent ; there are 30 species in the east and 20 in the west 
end which grow nowhere else. The sameness of character 
changes with the barren treeless lands at the verge of the 
Arctic region, and the distribution of plants varies both with 
the latitude and the longitude. Taking a broad view of the 
botanical districts of North America, there are two woody- 
regions, one on the eastern, the other on the western side/)f 
the continent, separated by a region of prairies where grasses 
and herbaceous plants predominate. The vegetation of 
these three parts, so dissimilar, varies with the latitude, but 
not after the same law as in Europe, for the winter is much 
colder, and the summer warmer, on the eastern coasts of 
America than on the western coast of Europe, owiilg in a 
great measure to the prevalence of westerly winds which 
bring cold and damp to our shores. 

Boundless forests of black and white spruce with an 
undergrowth of reindeer moss cover the country south of the 
Arctic region, which are afterwards mixed with other trees ; 
gooseberries, strawberries, currants, and some other plants 
thrive there. There are vast forests in Canada of pines, 
oak, ash, hiccory, red beech, birch, the lofty Canadian pop- 
lar, sometimes 100 feet high and 36 feet in circumference, 
and sugar maple ;■ the prevailing plants are kalmias, azaleas, 
and asters, the former vernal, the latter autumnal ; solidagos 
and asters are the most characteristic plants of this region. 

The splendour of the North American flora is displayed 
in the United States ; the American sycamore, chestnut, 
black walnut, hiccory, white cedar, wild cherry, red birch, 
locust-tree, tulip-tree or liriodendron, the glory of American 
forests, liquid-ambar, oak, ash, pine-trees of many species, 
grow luxuriantly with an undergrowth of rhododendrons, aza- 
leas, andromedas, gerardias, calycanthus, hydrangea, and 
many more of woody texture, with an infinite variety of 
herbaceous and climbing plants. 

The vegetation is different on the two sides of the Alle- 
ghany Mountains ; the locust-tree, Canadianpoplar, hibiscus, 
and hydrangea, are most common on the west side : the 
American chestnut and kalmias are so numerous on the 



272 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Atlantic side, as to give a distinctive character to the flora , 
here too aquatic plants are more frequent, among these the 
saracenia or pitcher-plant, singular in form, with leaves lilce 
pitchers covered with a lid, half-full of water. 

The autumnal tints of the forests in the middle States are 
beautiful and of endless variety ; the dark leaves of the 
evergreen pine, the red foliage of the maple, the yellow 
beech, the scarlet oak, and purple nyssa, with all their inter- 
mediate tints, ever changing with the light and distance, 
produce an eflfect at sunset that would astonish the native of 
a country with a more sober-coloured flora under a more 
cloudy sky. 

In Virginia, Kentucky, and the southern States the vege- 
tation assumes a different aspect, though many plants of more 
northern districts are mixed with it. Trees and shrubs here 
are remarkable for broad shining leaves and splendid blos- 
soms, as the gleditschia, catalpa, hibiscus, and all the family 
of magnolias, which are natives of the country, excepting a 
very few found in Asia and the Indian islands. They are 
the distinguishing feature of the flora from Virginia to the 
Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky Moun- 
tains : the magnolia grandiflora and the tulip-tree are the 
most splendid specimens of this race of plants ; the latter is 
often 120 feet high. The long-leaved pitch-pine, one of 
the most picturesque of trees, covers an arid soil on the coast 
of the Atlantic of 60,000 square miles. The swamps so 
common in the southern States are clothed with gigantic 
deciduous cypress, the aquatic oak, swampy hiccory, with 
the magnificent nelumbeum luteum and other aquatics, and 
among the innumerable herbaceous plants the singular dionsea 
muscipula, or American fly-trap ; the trap is formed by two 
opposite leaves, covered with spines so irritable, that it in- 
stantly closes upon the insect that has come to suck its sweet 
juice. This magnolia region corresponds in latitude with 
the southern shores of the Mediterranean, but the climate is 
hotter and more humid, in consequence of which there is a 
considerable number of Mexican plants. A few" dwarf-palms 
appear among the magnolias, and the forests in Florida and 
Alabama are covered with tillandsia usneoides, an air-plant, 
which hangs from the boughs. 

Ten or twelve species of grass cover the extensive prairies 
or steppes of the valley of the Mississippi. The forms of 



FLORA OF NORTH AMERICA. 273 

the Tartarian steppes appear to the north in the centaurea, 
artemisia, astragali, but the dahlias, cenotheras, with many 
more, are their own. The helianthus and coreopsis, mixed 
with some European genera, mark the middle regions: and 
in the south towards the Rocky Mountains, Clarkias and 
Bartonias are mixed with the Mexican genera of cactus and 
yucca. The western forest is less extensive and less varied 
than the eastern, but the trees are larger. This flora in high 
latitudes is but little known ; the thuya gigantea on the 
Rocky Mountains and the coast of the Pacific is 200 feet 
high. Claytonias and currants, with plants of northern 
Asia, are found here. 

Farther south the pinus Lambertiana is another specimen 
of the stupendous trees of this flora ; seven species of it are 
indigenous in California, some of which have measured 200, 
and even 300 feet high, and SO in circumference. Captain 
Belcher, in his ' Voyage on the Pacific,' mentions having 
measured an oak 27 feet in circumference, and another 18 
feet girth at the height of 60 feet from the ground, before 
the branches began to spread. This is the native soil of 
the currant-bushes with red and yellow blossoms, of many 
varieties of lupins, peonies, poppies, and other herbaceous 
plants so ornamental in our gardens. 

There are 332 genera of plants peculiar to North America, 
exclusive of Mexico, but no family of any great extent has 
yet been discovered there. About 160 large trees yield ex- 
cellent timber ; the wood of the pine-trees of the eastern 
forests is of inferior quality to that grown on the other side 
of the continent, and both appear to be less valuable than 
the pine- wood of Europe, which is best when produced in a 
cold climate. The pinus cembra and the pinus uncrnata are 
the most esteemed of the Old World. 

The native fruit of North America are mostly of the nut- 
kind, and there are rnany of these, to which may be added 
the Florida orange, the chicasa plum, the papaw, the banana, 
the red mulberry, and the plum-like fruit of the persimmon. 
There are seven species of wild grapes, but good wine has 
not hitherto been produced. Although America has con- 
tributed so much to the ornament of our pleasure-grounds 
and gardens, yet there is not one North American plant 
which has become an object of extensive cultivation, while 
America has borrowed largely from other parts of the globe ; 



274 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the gfapes cultivated in North America are European ; to- 
bacco, Indian corn, and many others of the utmost commer- 
cial value are strangers to the soil, having been introduced 
by the earliest inhabitants from Mexico and South America, 
which have contributed much more to general utility. 



MEXICAN FLORA. 

Mexico unites the vegetation of North and South America,^ 
though it resembles that of the latter more nearly. Whole 
provinces on the table-land and mountains produce alpine 
plants, oaks, chestnuts, and pines spontaneously. The edible 
rooted nasturtium and the tuberous-rooted sorrel are pecu- 
liar. The cheirostemon, or hand-tree, so named from the 
resemblance its stamens bear to the foot of a bird of prey, 
grows here, and also in the Guatimala forests. 

The low-lands of Mexico and Central America have a 
very rich flora, consisting of many orders and genera pecu- 
liar to them, and species without number, a great portion of 
which are unknown. The hymenea courbaril, from which 
the copal of Mexico is obtained, logwood, mahogany, and 
many other large trees, valuable for their timber, grow in the 
forests; sugar-cane, tobacco, indigo, aloe, yam, capsicum,.and 
yucca are indigenous in Mexico and Central America. It is 
the native region of the melastomas, of which 620 species 
grow here ; almost all the pepper tribe, the passiflorse, the orna- 
ment and pride of tropical America and the West Indian 
islands, begin to be numerous in these regions. The pine- 
apple is entirely American, growling in the woods and sa- 
vannahs : it has been carried to the West Indies, to the 
East Indies and China, and is naturalized in all. This 
country has also produced the cherimoya, said to be the 
most exquisite of fruit. Hot arid tracts are covered with 
the cactus tribe, a plant of Central America and Mexico, 
which is more widely dispersed than the anana : some species 
bear a considerable degree of cold. They are social plants, 
inhabiting sandy plains in thickets, and of many species : 
their forms are various, and their blossoms beautiful. A 
few occur at a considerable distance from the tropics, to the 
north and the south. The night-flowering cereus grows in 
all its beauty in the arid parts of Chili, filling the night air 



FLORA OF MEXICO. 275 

"With its perfume. The cactus opuntia grows in the Rocky 
Mountains ; and Sir George Back found a small island in 
the Lake of the Woods covered with it. This species has 
been brought to Europe, and now grows a common weed on 
the borders of the Mediterranean. In Mexico, the cochineal 
insect was collected from the cactus coccinellifer long before 
the Spanish conquest. There are large fields of American 
aloe, from which a liquor called pulque, and also an ardent 
spirit, are made. The ancient Mexicans made their hemp from 
this plant, and also their paper ; and they used its thorns 
for nails. The forests of Panama contain at least 97 different 
kinds of trees, which grow luxuriantly in a climate where 
the torrents of rain are so favourable to vegetation, and so 
unfavourable to life that the tainted air is deadly even to 
animals. The flora of each West Indian island is similar to 
that of the continent opposite to it. The myrtus pimento, 
producing alspice, is common in the hills : cloves, nutmeg, 
custard-apple, guava, mango, the avocado pear, and tobacco 
are indigenous ; the cabbage-palm grows to the height of 
200 feet ; the palma-real of Cuba is the most majestic of 
that noble family ; and in Barbadoes there still exists a tree,- 
but wearing out rapidly, which has given the island its 
name.. 

FLORA OF TROPICAL AMERICA. 

Although the flora of tropical America is better known 
than that of Asia or Africa, there must still be thousands of 
plants of which we have no knowledge : and those which 
have come under observation are so varied and so nume- 
rous, that it is not possible to convey an idea of the pecu- 
liarities of this vegetation, or of the extent and richness of 
its woodlands. The upper Orinoco flows for some hundred 
miles chiefly through forests ; and the silvas of the Amazons 
are six times the size of France. In these the trees are 
colossal, and the vegetation so matted together by under- 
wood, creeping and parasitical plants, that the sun's rays can 
scarcely penetrate the dense foliage. 

These extensive forests are by no means uniform ; they 
differ on each side of the equator, though climate and other cir- 
cumstances are the same. Venezuela, Guiana, the Amazons, 
and Brazil, are each the centre of a peculiar flora. So partial 



276 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

is this splendid vegetation, that almost each tributary of the 
great rivers has a flora of its own, particular families of 
plants are so restricted in their localities, and predominate 
so exclusively where they occur, that they change the ap- 
pearance of the forest. . Thus from the prevalence of the 
orders laurinee, sapotacese, and others, which have leathery, 
shining, and entire leaves, the forests through which the Rio 
Negro, Cassiquiare, and Tuamine flow, differ in aspect from 
those of the other affluents of the Amazons. Even the 
grassy JIarios, so uniform in appearance, have their centres 
of vegetation ; and only agree with the pampas of Buenos 
Ayres in being covered with grass and herbs. In these 
tropical regions the flora varies with the altitude also. On 
the Andes, almost at the limit of vegetation, the ground is 
covered with purple, azure, and scarlet gentians, drabas, 
alcheraillas, and many other brilliantly coloured alpine plants. 
This zone is followed by thickets of coriaceous-leaved plants, 
in perpetual bloom and verdure ; and then come the forest- 
trees. Arborescent ferns ascend to 7000 feet; the coffee- 
tree and palms to 5000 ; and neither indigo nor cocoa can 
be cultivated lower than 2000, ^ 

Many parts of the coasts of Venezuela and Guiana are 
rendered pestilential by the effluvia of the mangrove, avi- 
cenna, and the manchineel, one of the euphorbia family, 
consisting of 562 species in tropical America, all having 
milky juicej deleterious in the greater number. The well- 
known poison curara is prepared by the Indians of Guiana 
from the fruit and bark of the bertholletia, of the order 
strychneae, than which nature has probably produced no 
plants more deadly. The ourari is a creeping plant which 
yields the deadly wourali, the powerful effect of which was 
proved by Mr, Waterton's experiments. 

The cinchona, or true bark-tree, grows only on the Cor- 
dilleras of the Andes, Medicinal qualities exist in other 
plants of different genera in Guiana, as the cusparia carony, 
which produces Angustura bark, and others with similar 
properties. The sapindus saponaria, or soap-tree, is used 
by the natives for washing. Capsicum, vanilla, the hoya, 
or incense plant, the dipterix odorat, whose fruit is the 
tonqua-bean, and the casada or mandioc, are natives of the 
couutr)'. The cow-tree, almost confined to the Cordillera 
of the coast of Venezuela, yields such abundance of nutri- 



FLORA OF TROPICAL AMERICA. 277 

tious milky juice that it is carried in pails like milk from the 
cow. The chocolate-palm, the cacao-shrub, fruit of the most 
excellent flavaur, plants yielding balsam, resin, and gum, 
are numerous in the tropical regions. There the laurel 
tribe assume the character of majestic trees ; some are so 
rich in oil, that it gushes from a wound in the bark. One 
of these laurels produces the essential oil which dissolves 
caoutchouc, or Indian rubber, used in rendering cloth water- 
proof. 

, Plantains of gigantic size form large forests, but palms are 
the most numerous and the most beautiful of all the trees in 
these countries. There are 90 species of them ; and they are 
'so local that a change takes place every 50 miles. They are 
the greatest ornament of the upper Orinoco. 

The llanos of Venezuela and Guiana are covered with tall 
grass, mixed with lilies and other bulbous flowers, the sen- 
sitive mimosa, and palms constantly varying in species. 

No language can describe the glory of the forests of the 
Amazons and Brazil, the endless variety of form, the con- 
trasts of colour and size: there even the largest trees bear 
brilliant blossoms; scarlet, purple, blue, rose colour, and 
golden yellowj are blended with every possible shade of 
green. Majestic trees, as the bombax ceiba, the dark-leaved 
mora with its white blossoms, the fig, cashew and mimosa 
tribes, which are here of unwonted dimensions, and a thou- 
sand other giants of the forest, are contrasted with the grace- 
ful palm, the delicate acacia, reeds of a hundred feet high, 
grasses of 40, and tree-ferns in myriads. Passifloreae and 
slender creepers twine round the lower plants, while others 
as thick as cables climb the lofty trees, drop again to the 
ground, ri^e anew and stretch from bough to bough, wreathed 
with their own leaves and flowers, and studded with the 
vividly coloured blossoms of the orchideae. An impenetra- 
ble and everlasting vegetation covers the ground ; decay and 
death are concealed by the exuberance of life ; the trees are 
loaded with parasites while alive ; they become masses of 
living plants when they die. 

One twenty-ninth part of the flowering plants of the Bra- 
zilian forests are of the coffea tribe, and the rose-coloured and 
yellow-flowering bignonias are among their greatest orna- 
ments, where all is grace and beauty. Thousands of herbs 
and trees must still be undescribed, where each stream has 
24 



278 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

its own vegetation. In those parts of Brazil less favoured 
by nature the forests consist of stunted deciduous trees, and 
the boundless plains have grasses, interspersed with myrtles 
and other shrubs. 

- The forests of Paraguay and Yermejo, in La Plata, are al- 
most. as rich as those of the tropics. Noble trees furnish tim- 
ber and fruit ; the algaroba, a kind of acacia, produces clus- 
ters of a bean, of which the Indians make bread, and also a 
strong fermented liquoi'; the palm and cinchona grow there; 
and the Yerba-mate, the leaves of which are universally used 
as tea in South America, andwere in use before the Spanish 
conquest. 

The sandy deserts towards the mountains are the land of 
the aloe and cactus. in all their varieties. The fibres of the 
aloe are made into cordage by the Indians, for fishing-nets 
and other uses, and the juice affords them drink. Some 
larger species of cactus give durable wood ; and the cochineal 
insect, \yhich feeds on them, is a valuable article of commerce. 

Grass, clover, and the domiciled European aad African 
thistles, with a solitary ombu at wide intervals, are the un- 
varying features of the pampas ; and thorny stunted bushes, 
characteristic of all deserts, are the only vegetation of the 
•Patagonian shingle. But on the mountain valleys in the far 
south may be seen the winter's-bark, arbutus, new species of 
beech-trees, stunted berberries and misodendrons, which are 
singular kinds of parasitical plants. 

Large' Ibrests of araucaria imbricata growMn the Andes of 
Chili and Patagonia. I'his tall and handsome pine, wdth 
cones the size of a man's head, supplies the natives with a 
great part of their food. It is said that the fruit of one large 
tree will maintain eighteen persons for a year. 

Nothing grows under these great forests ; and when acci- 
dentally burnt down. in the mountainous parts of Patagonia, 
they never rise again, but the ground they grew on is soon 
covered with ah impenetrable bushwood of dw^arf oak. In 
Chili the violently stinging loasa appears first in these burnt 
places, bushes grow afterwards, and then comes a tree grass, 
18 feet high, of which the Indians make their hiits. The 
new vegetation that follows the burning of primeval forests 
is quite unaccountable. The ancient and undisturbed forests 
of Pennsylvania have no undergrowth, and when burnt down 
they are succeeded by a thick growth of rhodbdehdrons. 



ANTARCTIC FLORA. 279 

The southern coasts of Chili are very barren, and all plants 
existing there, even the herbaceous, have a tendency to as- 
sume a hard knotty texture. The stem of the wild potato, 
which is indigenous, becomes woody and bristly as it grows 
old. It is a native of the sea strand, and is never found 
more than 400 feet above it. In its wild state the root is 
small and bitter; it is one of many instances of the influence 
of cultivation in renderirig unpromising plants useful to man. 

Although the coast is barren, and the flora, at an elevation 
of 9000 feet on the Chilian Andes, almost identical with that 
of the Straits of Magellan, yet the climate is so mild in some 
valleys, especially that of Antuco, that the vegetation is semi- 
tropical. In it broad-leaved and bright-coloured plants, 
and the most fragrant and brilliant orchidese, are mixed with 
the usual alpine genera. Dr. Pceppig says, that whatever 
vSouth Africa or New Holland can boast of in beauty, in va- 
riety of form, or brilliancy of colour, is, rivalled by the flora 
in the highest zone inthis part of the Andes, even up to the 
region of perpetual snow ; and, indeed, it bears a strong ana- 
logy to the vegetation of both these countries. 

The humidityor dryness of the prevailing winds makes an 
immense difference in the character of the countries on each 
side of the- Andes. 'In Peru they are bare of plants on the 
western side, while on tfie east there is exuberant vegeta- 
tion ; but it gradually disappears with the iricreasing height, 
till ^t an elevation of 13,782 feet arborescent plants vanish, 
and alpine races, of the most vivid beauty, succeed ;~which, 
in their turn, give place to the grasses at the height of 16,138 
feet. Above these,. in the dreary plains of Bombon, and 
other lands of the same altitude, even the thinly-scattered 
mosses ^re sickly ; and at the height of 21,878 feet the snovv- 
lichen forms the last show of vegetable life ; confirming the 
observation of Don Ulloa, that the produce of the soil is the 
thermometer of Peru. 



ANTARCTIC FLORA. 

Tierra del Fuego and Kerguelen's Islands are the northern 
boundary of the antarctic lands, which are scattered round 
the south pole at immense distances from one another. On 
these the vegetation decreases as the latitude increases, till 



280 PHYSICAL GEOGTRATHY. 

at length \itter desolation prevails ; not a lichen covers the 
dreary storm-beaten rocks ; not a sea- weed lives in the gelid 
waves. In the arctic regions, on the contrary, no land has 
yet been discovered that is entirely destitute of vegetable life. 
This remarkable difference does not so much depend on a 
greater degree of cold in winter as on the want of warmth 
in summer. In the high northern latitudes, the power of the 
summer sun is so great as to melt the pitch between the 
planks of the vessels ; while in corresponding southern lati- 
tudes Fahrenheit's thermometer does not rise above 14° at 
noon, at a season-corresponding to our August. The perpe- 
tual snow comes to a much lower latitude in the southern 
lands than it does in the north. Sandwich Land, in a lati- 
tude corresponding to that of the north of Scotland, is per- 
petually covered with many fathoms of snow. A single spe- 
cies of grass, the aira antarctica, is the only flowering plant 
in the South Shetland Islands,- which are no less ice-bound ; 
and Cockburn Island, one of that group, in the 60th parallel, 
contains the last vestiges of vegetation ; while the namesake 
islands, in an equally high latitude, to the north of Scotland, 
are inhabited and cultivated ; nay, South Georgia, in a lati- 
tude similar to that of Yorkshire, is always clad in frozen 
snow, and only produces some mosses, lichens, and wild 
b'urnet ; while Iceland, 10 degrees nearer the pole, has 870 
species, more than half of which are ilower-bearing. 

The forest-covered islands of Tierra del Fuego are only 
360 miles from the desolate Shetland group. Such is the 
difference that a few degrees of latitude can produce in these 
antarctic regions, combined with an equable climate and ex- 
cessive humidity. The prevalence of evergreen plants is 
the most characteristic feature in the Fuegian flora. Densely 
entangled forests of winter's bark, and two species of beech- 
trees, grow from the shore to a considerable height on the 
mountains. Of these, the fagus deltoides, which never loses 
its brownish-green leaves, prevails almost to the exclusion 
of the evergreen winter's bark and the deciduous beech, 
which is very beautiful. There are dwarf species of arbutus, 
the myrtus nummularia, which is used instead of tea, besides 
berberry, currant, and fuchsia. Peculiar species of ranun- 
culi, calceolarias, caryophylleas, cruciform plants and violets. 
Wild celery and scurvy grass are the only edible plants; and 
a bright yellow fungus, which grows on the beech-trees, 



ANTARCTIC FLORA, .281 

forms ci great part of the food of the natives. There is a 
greater number of plants in Tierra del Fuego, either identical 
with those in Great Britain, or representatives of them, than 
exists 'in any other country in the southern hemisphere. The 
sea-pink, or thrift, the common sloewort, primula hir.suta, 
and at least thirty other flowering plants, with almost all the 
lichens, 48 mosses, and many other plants of thecryptogamous 
kinds, are identically the same ; while the number of gehefa 
common to both countries is still greater, and though un- 
known in the intermetliate latitudes, reappear here. Her- 
mite Island, west from Gape Horn, is a forest land, covered 
with winter's bark and the Fuegian beeches ; and is the most 
southern spot on earth on which: arborescent vegetation is 
found. An alpine flora,' many of them of Ejjropean genera, 
grows on the mountains ; succeeded higher up by mosses 
and lichens. Mosses are exceedingly plentiful throughout 
Fuegia ; but they abound in Hermite Island more than in 
ally other country, of singular and beautiful kinds. 

Although the Falkland Islands are in a lower latitude than 
Tierra del Fuego, not a tree is to be seen.. The veronica 
elliptica, resembling a myrtle, which is extremely rare, and 
confined to West Falkland, is the only large «hrub ; a white 
flowering plant, like an aster, about four feet high, is com- 
mon ; while a bramble, a crowberry, and a Tsyrtle, bearing 
no resemblance, however, to the^European species, trail on 
the ground, and afford edible fruit. The balsam bog, or 
bolax glebaria,,and grasses, form the only conspicuous fea- 
ture in tl\e botany of these islands; and, together with 
rushes and Dactylis Gsespitosa, or Tussack grass, cover 
them, almost to the exclusion of other plants. The bolax 
grows in tufted hemispherical masses, of a yellow-green 
colour, and very firm substance, often four feet high, and as 
many in diameter, from whence a strong-smelling resinouS 
substance exudes perceptible at a distance. This plant has 
umbelliferous flowers, and belongs to the carrot order, but 
forms an antarctic genus quite peculiar. 

The tussock grass is the most useful and the most singu- 
lar plant in this flpra. It covers all the small islands of the 
group, like a forest of miniature palm-trees, and thrives best 
on the shores exposed to the spray of the sea. Each tussock 
is an isolated plant, occupying about two square yards of 
ground. It forms a hillock of matted roots, rising straight 
24* 



282 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

and solitary out of the soil, often six feet high and four or 
five in diameter ; from the top of which it throws out a thick 
grassy foliage of blades, six feet long, drooping on all sides, 
and forming with the leaves of the adjacent plants an arch 
over the ground beneath, \vhich yields shelter to sea-lions, 
penguins, and petrels. Cattle are exceedingly fond of this 
grass, which yields annually a much greater supply of ex- 
cellent fodder than the same extent of ground would do 
either of common grass or clover. Both the tussock grass 
and the bolax are found, though sparingly, in Tierra del 
Fuego ; indeed, the vegetation of the Falkland Islands con- 
sists chiefly of the mountain plants of that country, and of 
those that grow on the arid plains of Patagonia ; but -it is 
kept close to the ground by the fierceness of the terrific 
gales that sweep over these antarctic islands. Peculiar spe- 
cies of European genera are found here, as a calceolaria, 
wood sorrel, and a yellow violet, with the shephejd's purse, 
cardamine,^ hirsuta, and the primula farinosa, appear to be 
identical with those at home. In all there are scarcely 120 
flowering plants, including grasses. Ferns and mosses are 
few, but lichens are in great variety and abundance, among 
which many are identical with those in Britain. 

In the eastern hemisphere, far, far removed from the 
Falkland group, the Auckland Islands lie in the boisterous 
ocean south of New Zealand. They are covered with dense 
and all but impenetrable thickets of stunted trees, or rather 
shrubs, about 20 or t30 feet high, gnarled by gales from a 
stormy sea. There is nothing analogous to these shrubs in 
the northern hemisphere; but the veronica elliptica, a na- 
tive of Tierra del Fuego and New Zealand, is one of them. 
Fifteen species of ferns find shelter under these trees, and 
their fallen trunks are covered with mosses and lichens. 
Eighty flowering plants were found during the stay of the 
discovery ships, of which fifty-six are new; and half of the 
whole number are peculiar to, this group and to Campbell's 
Island. Some of the most beautiful liowers grow on the 
mountains, others are mixed with the ferns in the forests. A 
beautiful plant was discovered, like a purple aster, a vero- 
nica, with large spikes of ultramarine colour ; a white one, 
with a perfume like jessamine ; a sweet-smelling alpine 
hierochloe ; and in some of the valleys the fragrant and 
bright-yellow blossoms of a species of asphodel were so 



ANTARCTIC FLORA. 283 

abundant that the ground looked like a carpet of gold. A 
singular plant grows on the sea-shore, having bunches of 
green waxy blossoms the size of a child's head. There are 
also antarctic species of European genera, as beautiful red 
and white gentians, geraniums, &c. _ The vegetation is cha- 
racterized by an exuberance of the finer flowering plants, and 
an absence of grasses and sedges ; but the landscape, though 
picturesque, has a sombre aspect, from the prevalence of 
brownish-leaved plants of the myrtle tribe. 

Campbell's Island lies 120 miles to the south of the Auck- 
land group, and is much smaller, but from the more varied 
form of its surface it is supposed to produce as many species 
of plants. During the two days the discovery ships, under 
the command of Sir James Ross, remained there, betw^een 
200 and 300 were collected, of which 66 were flowering 
plants, 14 of which were peculiar to the country. Many of 
the Auckland Island plants were found here, yet a great 
.change had taken place; 34 species had disappeared and 
were replaced by 20 new, all peculiar to Campbell's Island 
alone, and some were found that hitherto had been supposed 
to belong to Antarctic America only. In the Auckland group 
only one-seventh of the plants are common to other Antarc- 
tic lands, whilst in Campbell's Island a fourth are natives of 
other longitudes in the Antarctic Ocean. The flora of 
Campbell's Island and the Auckland group is so intimately 
■allied to that of New Zealand, that it may be^ regarded as 
the continuation of the latter, under an Antarctic character, 
though destitute of the beech and pine trees. There is a 
considerable number of Fuegian plants in the islands under 
consideration, though 4000 miles distant, and whenever their 
flora differs in the smaller plants from that of New Zea- 
land, it approximates to that of Antarctic America; but 
the trees and shrubs are entirely dissimilar. The relation 
between this vegetation and that of the northern regions is 
but slight. The Auckland group and Campbell's Island are 
in a latitude corresponding to that of England, yet only 
three indigenous plants of our island have been found in 
them, namely, the cardamine hirsuta, montia, and calli- 
triche. This is the utmost southern limit of tree-ferns. 

Perhaps no spot in either hemisphere, at the same dis- 
tance from the pole, is more barren than Kerguelen Islands 
lying in a remote part of the south polar oceans. Only 18 



284 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

species of flowering plants were found there, which is less 
than the number in Melville Island, in the Arctic Seas ; and 
three times less than the number even in Spitzbergen. The 
whole known vegetation of these islands only amounts to 
150, including sea-weeds. The pringlea, ^ kind of cab- 
bage, acceptable to those who have been long at sea, is 
peculiar to the island, and grass, together with a plant simi- 
lar to the bolax of the Falkland Inlands, covers large tracts. 
About 20 mosses, lichens, &c., are only found in these 
islands, but many of the others are also native in the Euro- 
pean Alps, and north polar regions. It is a very remarkable 
circumstance in the distribution of plants, tliat there should 
be so much analogy between the floras of places so far apart 
as Kerguelen Islands, the groups south from New Zealand, 
the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and Tierra del Fuego. 



MARINE VEGETATION. 

A vegetable world lies beneath- the surface of the ocean, 
altogether unlike that on land, and existing under circum- 
stances totally different with regard to light, heat, and pres- 
sure, yet sustained by the same means. Carbonic acid and 
ammonia are as essential, and metallic oxides are as indis- 
pensable to 'marine vegetation as they are to land plants. 
Sea water contain^ ammonia, and something more than a 
twelve-thousandth part of its weight of carbonate of lime, 
yet that minute portion is sufficient to supply all the shell- 
fish and coral insects in the sea with materials for their habi- 
tations, as well as food for vegetation. Marine plants are 
more expert chemists than we are, for the water of the ocean 
contains rather less than a millionth part of its weight of 
iodine, which they collect in quantities, impossible for us to 
obtain otherwise than from their ashes. 

Sea-weeds fix their roots to any thing ; to stone, wood, 
and to other sea-weeds ; they must therefore derive all their 
nourishment from the water, and the air it contains; and 
the vital force or chemical energy by which they decompose 
and assimilate the substances fit for their maintenance, is 
the sun's light. 

Flower-bearing sea-weeds are very limited in their range, 
which depends upon the depth of water and the nature of the 



MARINE VEGETATION. 285 

coasts, but tTie cryptogaraic kinds are widely dispersed ; some 
species are even found in every climate from pole to pole. 

Marine vegetation varies both horizontally and vertically 
with the depth, and it seems to be a general law throughout 
the ocean that the light of the sun and vegetation end toge- 
ther ; it consequently depends on the power of the sun and the 
transparency of the water ; so different kinds of sea- weeds 
affect different depths, where the weight of the water, the quan- 
tity of light and heat, suits them best. One great marine zone 
lies between the high and low water marks, and varies in spe- 
cies with the nature of the coasts, but exhibits similar phe- 
nomena throughout the northern hemisphere. Tn the British 
seas, where, with two exceptions, the whole ffora is crypto- 
gamic, this zone does not extend deeper than 30 fathoms, 
but is divided into two distinct provinces, one to the south 
and another to the north. The former includes the southern 
and eastern coasts of England, the southern and western 
coasts of Ireland, and both the channels ; while the northern 
flora is confined to the Scottish seas and the adjacent coasts 
of England and Ireland. The second British zone begins 
at low-water mark, and extends below it to a depth from 7 
to 15 fathoms. It contains the great tangle sea-weeds, 
growing in miniature forests, mixed with fuel, and is the 
abode of a host of animals. The nuUiflora, a coral-like 
sea-weed, is the kst plant of "this zone, and the lowest- in 
these seas, where it does not extend below the depth of 60 
fathoms, but in the Mediterranean it is found at 70 or 80 
fathoms, and is the lowest plant in that sea. The same law 
prevails in the Bay of Biscay, where one set of sea-weeds is 
never found lower than 20 feet below the surface ; another 
only in the zone between the depths of 5 and 30 feet ; and 
another between 15 and 35 feet. In these two last zones 
they are most numerous ; at a greater depth the kinds con- 
tinue to vary, but their numbers decrease. The seeds ^f 
each kind float at the depth most genial to the future plant ; 
they must therefore be of different weights. The distribu- 
tion in the Egean Sea was found by Professor E. Forbes to 
be perfectly similar, only that the vegetation is different, and 
extends to a greater depth in the Mediterranean than in 
more northern seas. He also observes that sea-weeds grow- 
ing near the surface are more limited in theirdistribution than 
those that grow lower down, and that with regard to vegeta- 



286 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

tion depth corresponds with latitude, as height does on land. 
Thus the flora at great depths, in warm seas, is represented 
by kindred forms in higher latitudes. There is every reason 
to believe that the same laws of distribution prevail through- 
out the ocean and every sea. 

Two genera of weeds inhabit the sea : a jointed kind, 
which includes the confervse, which are plants having a 
thread-like form ; and the jointless kind, to which belong 
dulse, laver, the kinds used for making kelp, vegetable glue, 
and iodine; that in the Indian Archipelago of which the 
sea-swallow makes the edible nests ; and all the huge species 
which grow in submarine forests, of float like green meadows 
in the open ocean. 

Sea-weeds adhere firmly to the rocks before their fructifi- 
cation, but they are easily detached afterwards, which ac- 
counts for some of the vast fields of floating weeds ; but 
others, of gigantic size and wide distribution, are supposed 
to grow unattached in the water itself. There are perma- 
nent bands of sea-weed in our British Channel, and in the 
North Sea, of the kind called felurti, which grows abun- 
dantly on the western coasts of the Channel, and they lie in 
the direction of the currents, in beds 15 or 20 miles long, 
and not more than 600 feet wide. These bands must os- 
cillate with the tides between two corresponding zones of 
rest, one at the turn of the flood, and the other at the turn 
of the ebb. It is doubtful whether the fucus natans or sar- 
gassum bucciforum grows on rocks at the bottom of the At- 
lantic, between the parallels of 40' north and south of the 
equator, and when detached, is drifted uniformly to parti- 
cular spots which never vary ; or whether it is propagated 
and grows in the water; but the mass of that plant, west of 
the Azores, occupies an area equal to that of France, and 
has not changed its place since the tiitie of Cobimbus. 
Fields of the same kind cover the sea at the Bahama 
Islands and other places, and two new species of it were 
discovered in the Antarctic seas. 

The macrocystis pyrifera and the laniaria radiata are the 
most remarkable of marine plants for their gigantic size and 
the extent of their range. They were met with on the An- 
tarctic coasts, two degrees nearer the south pole than any 
other vegetable production, forming the utmost limit of 
vegetable life in the south polar seas. The macrocystis 



MARINE VEGETATION. 287 

pyrifera exists in vast detached masses, like green meadows, 
in every latitude from the south polar ocean to the 45th de- 
gree N. lat. in the Atlantic, and to the shores of California 
in the Pacific, where there are fields of it so impenetrable, 
that it has saved vessels driven by the heavy swell towards 
that shore from shipwreck. It is never seen where the tem- 
perature of the water is at the freezing-point, and is the 
la-gest of the vegetable tribe, being occasionally 300 or 400 
feet long. The laminaria abounds off the Cape of Good 
Hope and in the Antarctic Ocean. These two species form 
great part of a band of sea-weed that girds Kerguelen 
Islands so densely, that a boat can scarcely be pulled through 
it, and they are found in great abundance on the coasts of 
the Falkland group, and also in vast fields in the open sea, 
hundreds of miles from any land ; had it ever grown on the 
distant shores, it must hjiive taken ages to travel -so far, drifted 
by the wind, currents, and sand of the seas. The red, green, 
and purple laver^; of Great Britain are found on the coasts of 
the Falkland Islands, and though some of the northern weeds 
are not found in the intervening warm seas, they re-appear 
here. The lessonia isthe most remarkable marine plant in this 
group of islands. Its stems, much thicker than a man's leg, 
and from 8 to 10 feet long,, fix themselves by clasping fibres 
to the rocks beyond the high-water mark. Many branches 
shoot upwards from these stems, from which . long leaves 
droop into the water like willows. There are immense sub- 
marine forests off Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, attached 
to the rocks at the bottom. These plants are so strong and 
buoyant, that they bring up large masses of stone, and as 
they grow slanting, and stretch along the surface of the sea, 
they are sometimes 300 -feet long. The quantity of living 
creatures which inhabit these marine forests and the parasi- 
tical weeds attached to them is inconceivable, they absolutely 
teem with life. 

- Great patches of confervas are occasionally met with in 
the^ high seas. Bands several miles long, of a reddish- 
brown species, like -chopped hay, occur off Bahia, on the 
coast of Brazil ; the same plant is said to have given the 
name to the Red Sea ; and different species are common in 
the Australian seas. 



288 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



DISTRIBUTION OF INSECTS. 



Three hundred thousand insects are known : some with 
wings, others without ; some are aquatic^ others are aquatic 
only in the first stage of their existence ; and many are para- 
sitical. Some land insects are carnivorous, others feed on 
vegetables ; some of the carnivorous tribe live on dead, 
others on living animals, but they are not half so numerous 
as those that live on vegetables. Some change as they are 
developed ; in their first stage they eat animal food, and vege- 
tables when they come to maturity. Insects increase in kinds 
and in numbers from the poles to the equator : in a residence 
of eleven months in Melville Island, Sir Edward Parry found 
only six species, because lichens and mosses do not afford 
nourishment for the insect tribes, though it is probable that 
every other kind of plant gives food and shelter to more 
than one species ; it is even said that 40 different insects 
are quartered upon the common nettle. 

The increase of int;ecls from the poles to the equator does 
not take place at the same rate everywhere. The polar re- 
gions and New Holland have very few specifically and indi- 
vidually ; they are mere abundant in North Africa, Chili, 
and the sandy deserts west from Brazil ; North America has 
fewer species than Europe in the same latitude, and Asia 
has few varieties of species in proportion to its size ; Eu- 
rope, especially Germany, produces many more species 
than intertropical Africa ; Caffraria, the African and Indian 
Islands, are nearly the same as to species; but by far the 
richest of all, both in species an^d numbers, are central and 
intertropical America. Beetles are an exception to the law 
of increase towards the equator, as they are infinitely more 
numerous in species in the temperate regions of the northern 
hemisphere than in equatorial countries. The location of 
insects depends upon that of the plants which yield their 
food ; and as almost each plant is peopled with inhabitants 
peculiar to itself, insects are distributed over the earth in 



DISTRIBUTION OF INSECTS. 289 

the same manner as vegetables ; the groups consequently 
are often confined within narrow limits, and it is extraordi- 
nary that, notwithstanding their powers of locomotion, they 
often remain within a particular compass, though the plants, 
and all other circumstances in their immediate vicinity, ap- 
pear equally favourable for their habitation. 

Though insects are distributed in certain limited groups, 
yet most of the families have representatives in all the great 
regions of the globe, and some identical species are inhabi- 
tants of countries far from one another. The venussi cardui 
live in all the four quarters of the globe and in Australia ; 
and one, which never could have been conveyed by man, is 
native in southern Europe, the coast of Barbary, and Chili. 
It is evident from these circumstances that not only each 
group, but also each particular species, must have been 
originally created in the places they now inhabit. 

Mountain-chains are a complete barrier to insects, even 
more so than rivers : not only lofty mountains like the Andes 
divide the kinds, but they are even different on the two sides 
of the Col de Tende in the Alps. Each soil has kinds pecu- 
liar to itself, whether dry or moist, cultivated or wild, meadow 
or forest. Stagnant water and marshes are generally full of 
them; some live in water, some run on its surface, and 
every water-plant affords food and shelter to many different 
kinds. The east wind seems to have considerable effect in 
bringing the insect or in developing the eggs of certain 
species ; for example, the aphis, known as the blight in our 
country, lodges in myriads on plants, and shrivels up their 
leaves after a continued east wind. 

Temperature, by its influence on vegetation, has an in- 
direct effect on the insects that are to feed upon plants, and 
extremes of heat and cold have more influence on their 
locality than the mean annual temperature. Thus in the 
polar regions the musquito tribes are more numerous and 
more annoying than in temperate countries, because they 
pass their early stages of existence in water, which shelters 
them, and the short but hot summer is genial to their brief 
span of life. 

In some instances height corresponds with latitude. The 

parnassus apollo, a butterfly native in the plains of Sweden, 

is also found in the Alps, the Pyrenees, and even on the 

Himalaya. Some insects require several years to arrive at 

25 



290 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

their perfect state. They lie buried in the ground in the 
form of grubs ; the cockchafer comes to maturity in three 
years, and some American species require a much longer 
time. 

Insects do not attain their perfect state till the plants they 
are to feed upon are ready for them. Hence in cold and 
temperate climates their appearance is simultaneous with 
vegetation ; and as the rainy and dry seasons within the 
tropics correspond to our winter and summer, insects appear 
there after the rains and vanish in the heat : the rains, if 
too violent, destroy them; and in\ countries where that 
occurs, there are two periods in the year in which they are 
most abundant, one before and one after the rains. It is 
also observed in Europe that insects decrease in the heat of 
summer and become more numerous in autumn : the heat is 
thought to throw some into a state of torpor, but the greater 
number perish. 

It is not known that any insect depends entirely upon 
only one species of plant for its existence, or whether it may 
not have recourse to congeners should its habitual plant 
perish. When particular species of plants of the same family 
occur in places widely apart, insects of the same genus will 
be found on them, so that the existence of the plant may 
often be inferred from that of the insect, and in several 
instances the converse. 

When a plant is taken from one country to another in which 
it has no congeners, it is not attacked by the injects of the 
country : thus our cabbages and carrots in Cayenne are not 
injured by the insects of that country, and the tulip-tree and 
other magnolias are not molested by our insects ; but if a 
plant has congeners in its new country, the inhabitants will 
soon find their way to the stranger. 

The common fly is one of the most universal of insects, 
yet it was unknown in some of the South Sea Islands till it 
was carried there by ships from Europe, and it has now be- 
come a plague. 

The rausquito and culex are spread over the world more 
generally than any other tribe : it is the torment of men and 
animals from the poles to the equator by night and by day : 
the species are numerous and their location partial. In the 
Arctic regions the culex pipiens, which passes tWo-thirds of 
its existence in water, swarms in summer in myriads; the 



DISTRIBUTION OF INSECTS. 291 

lake Myvair, in Iceland, has its name from the legions of 
these tormentors that cover its surface. They are less nu- 
merous in middle Europe, though one species of musquito, 
the simulia columbaschensis, which is very small, appears in 
such clouds in parts of Hungary, especially the bannat of 
Temeswar, that it is not possible to breathe without swallow- 
ing many : even cattle and children have died from them. 
In Lapland there is a plague of the same kind. Of all places 
ori earth the Orinoco and other great rivers of tropical Ame- 
rica are the most obnoxious to this plague. The account 
given by Baron Humboldt is really fearful : at no season of 
the year, at no hour of the day or night, can rest be found ; 
whole districts in the Upper Orinoco are deserted on account 
of these insects. New species follow one another with such 
precision, that the time of day or night may be known accu- 
rately from their humming noise, and from the different sen- 
sations of the pain which the different poisons produce. The 
only respite is the interval of a few minutes between the de- 
parture of one gang and the arrival of their successors, for 
the species do not mix. On some parts of the Orinoco the 
air is one dense cloud of poisonous insects to the height of 
20 feet. It is singular that they do not infest rivers that 
have black water, and each white stream is peopled with its 
own kinds ; though ravenous for blood, they can live with- 
out it, as they are found where no animals exist. 

In Brazil the quantity of insects is so, great in the woods, 
that their noise is heard in a ship at anchor some distance 
from the shore. 

Various genera of butterflies and moths are very limited 
in their habitations, others are dispersed over the world, but 
the species are almost always different. Bees and wasps are 
equally universal, yet each country has its own. The com- 
mon honey-bee is the only European insect directly useful 
to man; it was introduced into North America not many 
years ago, and is now spread over the continent. European 
bees, of which there are many species, generally have stings; 
the Australian bee, like a black fly, is without a sting; and 
in Brazil there are 30 species of stingless bees. 

Fire-flies are mostly tropical, yet there are four species in 
Europe ; in South America there are three species, and so 
brilliant that their pale green light is seen at the distance of 
200 paces. 



292 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The silkworm comes from China, and the cochineal insect 
is ^ native of South and Central America: there are many 
species of it in other countries. The coccus lacca is Indian; 
the coccus ilicis lives in Italy, and there is one in Poland, 
but neither of these have been cultivated. 

Scorpions under various forms are in all warm climates; 
24 species are peculiar to Europe, but they are small in com- 
parison with those in tropical countries: one in Brazil is six 
inches long. As in musquitoes, the poison of the same spe- 
cies is more active in some situations than in others. At 
Cumana the sting of the scorpion is little feared, while that 
of the same species in Carthagena causes loss of speech for 
many days. 

Ants are universally distributed, but of different kinds: 
they are so destructive in South America, that Baron Hum- 
boldt says there is not a manuscript in that country a hun- 
dred years old. Near great rivers they build their nests 
above the line of the annual inundations. 

Spiders abound more in Europe than elsewhere; of 900 
known kinds, each country has its own, varying in size, co- 
lour, and habits, from the huge bird-catching spider of South 
America, to the almost invisible European gossamer floating 
in the air on its silvery thread. Many of this ferocious family 
are aquatic; and spiders, with some other insects, are said 
to be the first inhabitants of new islands. 

The migration of insects is one of the most curious circum- 
stances relating to them: they sometimes appear in great 
flights in places where they never were seen before, and they 
continue their course with perseverance which nothing can 
check. This has been observed in the migration of crawling 
insects: caterpillars have attempted to cross a stream. Coun- 
tries near deserts are most exposed to the invasion of locusts 
which deposit their eggs in the sand, and when the young 
are hatched by the sun's heat, they emerge from the ground 
without wings ; but as soon as they attain maturity, they obey 
the impulse of the first wind and (ly, under the guidance of 
a leader, in a mass, whose front keeps a straight line, so 
dense that it forms a cloud in the air, and the sound of their 
wings is likt» the murmur of the distant sea. They take im- 
mense flights, crossing the Mozambique channel from Africa 
to Madagascar, which is 120 miles broad ; they come from 
Barbary to Italy, and a few have been seen in Scotland. 



DISTRIBUTION OF FISHKS. 293 

Even th% wandering tribes of locusts differ in species in dif- 
ferent deserts, following the universal law of organized na- 
ture. Mr. Ehrcnberg has discovered a new world of crea- 
tures in the Infusoria, so minute that they are invisible to the 
naked eye. He found them in fog, rain, and snow, in the 
ocean, in stagnant water, in animal and vegetable juices, in 
the dusty air that sometimes falls on the ocean ; and he de- 
tected 18 species 20 feet below the surface of the ground, in 
peat earth, which was full of microscopic live animals ; they 
exist in ice, and are not killed by boiling water. This lowest 
order of animal life is much more abundant than any other, 
aad new species are found every day. Magnified, some of 
them seem to consist of a transparent vesicle, and some have 
a tail: they move with great alacrity, and show intelligence 
by avoiding obstacles in their course : others have siliceous 
shells. Language, and even imagination, fails in the attempt 
to describe the inconceivable myriads of these invisible in- 
habitants of the ocean, the air, and the earth : they no doubt 
become the prey of larger creatures, and perhaps blood-suck- 
ing insects may have recourse to them when other prey is 
wantins:. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



DISTRIBUTION OF FISHES, AND OF THE MARINE MAMMALIA, 
PHOC^aS, DOLPHINS, AND WHALES. 

Before Sir James Ross's voyage to the Antarctic regions, 
the profound and dark abysses of the ocean were supposed 
to be entirely destitute of animal life ; now it may be pre- 
sumed that no part of it is uninhabited, since during that ex- 
pedition live creatures were fished up from a depth of 6000 
feet. But as most of the larger fish usually frequent shallow 
water near the coasts, deep seas must form barriers as impas- 
sable to the greater number of them as mountains do to land 
animals. The polar, the equatorial ocean, and the inland 
seas, have each their own particular inhabitants ; almost all 
the species and many of the genera of the marine creation 
are different in the two hemispheres, and even in each par- 
ticular sea ; and under similar circumstances the species are 
25* 



294 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

for the most part representative, not the same. Identity of 
species, however, does occur, even at the two extremities of 
the globe, for living animals were brought up from the pro- 
found depths of the Antarctic Ocean which Sir James Ross 
recognized to be the very same species which he had often 
met with in the Arctic seas. "The only way they could 
have got from the one pole to the other must have been 
through the tropics ; but the temperature of the sea in these 
regions is such that they could not exist in it unless at a depth 
of nearly 2000 fathoms. At that depth they might pass from 
the Arctic to the Antarctic Ocean without a variation of 5 
degrees of temperature ; whilst any land animal, at the most 
favourable season, must experience a difference of 50 degrees, 
and if in winter, no less than 150 degrees of Fahrenheit's 
thermometer;" — a strong presumption that marine creatures 
can exist at the depth and under the enormous pressure of 
12,000 feet of water. 

The form and nature of the coasts have great influence on 
the distribution of fishes; when they are uniformly of the 
same geological structure, so as to afford the same food and 
shelter, the fish are the same, or similar. 

The ocean, the most varied and most wonderful part of 
the creation, absolutely teems with life: "things innumera- 
ble, both great and small, are there." The forms are not to 
be numbered even of those within our reach ; yet, numerous 
as they are, few have been found exempt from the laws of 
geographical distribution. 

The discoloured portions of the ocean generally owe the 
tints they assume to myriads of insects. In the Arctic seas, 
where the water is pure transparent ultramarine colour, parts 
of 20 or 30 square miles, 1500 feet deep, are green and tur- 
bid from the quantity of minute animalcules. Captain Sco- 
resby calculated that it would require 80,000 persons, work- 
ing unceasingly from the creation of man to the present day, 
to count the number of insects contained in two miles of the 
green water. What then must be the amount of animal life 
in the polar regions, where one-fourth part of the Greenland 
sea, for 10 degrees of latitude, consists of that water. These 
animalcules are of the medusa tribe, mixed with others that 
are moniliform. Some medusae are very large, floating like 
jelly ; and although apparently carried at random by the 
waves, each species has its definite location, and even loco- 



MARINE INFUSORIA. 295 

motion. One species comes in spring from the Greenland 
seas to the coast of Holland ; and Baron Humboldt met with 
an immense shoal of them in the Atlantic, migrating at a rapid 
rate. 

Dr. Poeppig mentions a stratum of red water near Cape 
Pelaris, 24 miles long and 7 broad, which seen from the 
mast-head appeared dark-red, but on proceeding it became 
a brilliant purple, and the wake of the vessel was rose-colour. 
The water was perfectly transparent, but small red dots could 
be discerned moving in spiral lines. The vermilion sea off 
California is no doubt owing to a similar cause, as Mr. Dar- 
win found red and chocolate-coloured water on the coast of 
Chili over spaces of several square miles full of microscopic 
animalcules, darting about in every direction, and sometimes 
exploding. Infusoria are not confined to water; the bottom 
of the sea swarms with them. Siliceous-coated infusoria are 
found in the mud of the coral islands under the equator ; and 
68 species were discovered in the mud in Erebus Bay, near 
the Antarctic pole. These minute forms of organized being, 
invisible to the naked eye, are intensely and extensively de- 
veloped in both of the polar oceans, and serve for food to 
the higher orders offish in latitudes beyond the limits of vege- 
tation. Some are peculiar to each of the polar seas, some 
are common to both, and a few are distributed extensively 
throughout the ocean. 

The enormous prodigality of animal life supplies the place 
of vegetation, so scanty in the ocean in comparison with 
that which clothes the land, and which probably would be 
insufficient for the supply of the marine creation, were the 
deficiency not made up by the superabundant land vegeta- 
tion, and insects carried to the sea by rivers. The fish that 
live on sea- weed must bear a smaller proportion to those 
that are predacious, than the herbivorous land animals do to 
the carnivorous. Fish certainly are most voracious : none 
are without their enemies ; they prey and are preyed upon ; 
and there are two which devour even the live coral, hard as 
its coating is ; nor does the coat of mail of shell-fish protect 
them. Whatever the proportion may be which predatory 
fish bear to herbivorous, the quantity of both must be enor- 
mous, for, besides the infusoria, the great forests of fuci and 
sea- weed are everywhere a mass of infinitely varied forms of 
being, either parasitical, feeding on them, seeking shelter 
among them, or in pursuit of others. 



296 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The observations of Professor E. Forbes in tlie Egean Sea 
show that depth has great influence in the geographical dis- 
tribution of marine animals. From the surface to the depth 
of 230 fathoms there are eight distinct regions in that sea, 
each of which has its own vegetation and inhabitants. The 
number of shell-fish and other marine animals is greater spe- 
cifically and individually between the surface and the depth 
of two fathoms than in all the regions below taken together, 
and both decrease downwards to the depth of 105 fathoms ; 
between which and the depth of 230 only eight shell-fish 
were found ; and animal life ceases in that part of the Medi- 
terranean at 300 fathoms. The changes in the different 
zones are not abrupt ; some of the creatures of an under 
region always appear before those of the region above van- 
ish ; and although there are a few species the same in some 
of the eight zones, only two are common to all. Those near 
the surface have forms and colours belonging to the inhabi- 
tants of southern latitudes, while those lower down are ana- 
logous to the animals of northern seas ; so that in the sea 
depth corresponds with latitude, as height does on land. 
Moreover, the extent of the geographical distribution of any 
species is proportional to the depth at which it lives ; con- 
sequently, those living near the surface are less widely dis- 
persed than those inhabiting deep w'ater. Professor Forbes 
also discovered several shell-fish living in the Mediterranean 
that have hitherto only been known as fossils of the tertiary 
strata ; and also that the species least abundant as fossils are 
most numerous alive, and the converse; hence the former 
are near their maximum, while the latter are approaching to 
extinction. These very important experiments, it is true, 
were confined to the Mediterranean ; but analogous results 
have been obtained in the Bay of Biscay and in the British 
seas. There are four zones of depth in our seas, each of 
which has its own inhabitants, consisting of shell-fish, crus- 
taceee, corallines, and other marine creatures. The first zone 
lies between high and low-water marks, consequently it is 
shallow in some places and 30 feet deep in others. In all 
parts of the northern hemisphere it presents the same pheno- 
mena ; but the animals vary with the nature of the coast, 
according as it is of rock, gravel, sand, or mud. In the Bri- 
tish seas the animals of this littoral or coast zone are distri- 
buted in three groups that differ decidedly from one another, 



PROVINCES OF MARINE LIFE. 297 

though many are common to all. One occupies the seas on 
the southern shores of our islands and both channels ; a mid- 
dle group has its centre in the Irish seas ; and the third is 
confined to the Scottish seas, and the adjacent coasts of Eng- 
land and Ireland. The second zone extends from the low- 
water mark to a depth below it of from 7 to 15 fathoms, and 
is crowded with animals living on and among the sea- weeds, 
as radiated animals, shell-fish, and many zoophytes. In the 
third zone, which is below that of vegetable life, marine ani- 
mals are more numerous and of greater variety than in any 
other. It is particularly distinguished by arborescent crea- 
tures, that seem to take the place of plants, carnivorous mol- 
lusca, together with large and peculiar radiata. It ranges 
from the depth of 15 to 50 fathoms. The last zone is the 
region of stronger corals, peculiar moUusca, and of others that 
only inhabit deep water. This zone extends to the depth of 
100 fathoms or more. 

Except in the Antarctic seas, the superior zone of shell- 
fish is the only one of which any thing is known in the great 
oceans, which have numerous special provinces ; but, ac- 
cording to Mr. Lyell, nearly all the species of molluscous 
animals in the seas of the two temperate zones are distinct, 
yet the whole species in one bears a strong analogy to that 
in the other ; both diflfer widely from those in the tropical 
and arctic oceans ; and, under the same latitude, species 
vary with the longitude. The east and west coasts of tropi- 
cal America have only one shell-fish in common ; and those 
of both differ from the shell-fish in the islands of the Pacific 
and the Gallipagos Archipelago, which forms a distinct 
region. Notwithstanding the many definite marine pro- 
vinces, the same species are occasionally found in regions 
widely separated. A few of the shell-fish of the Gallipagos 
Archipelago are the same with those of the Philippine 
Islands, though so far apart. The east coast of America, 
which is poor in shell-fish, has a considerable number in 
common with the coasts of Europe. 

The larger and more active inhabitants of the waters obey 
the same laws with the rest of the creation, though the pro- 
vinces are in some instances very extensive. Dr. Richard- 
son observes, that there is one vast province in the Pacific, 
extending 42° on each side of the equator, between the 
meridians including Australia, New Zealand, the Malay 



298 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Archipelago, China, and Japan, in which the genera are the 
same ; but at its extremities the Arctic and Antarctic genera 
are mingled with the tropical forms. Very many species of 
the Red Sea and eastern coast of Africa range to the Indian 
and China seas, those of North Australia, and all Oceanica ; 
the continuous chains of islands being favourable to their 
dispersion. Few of the Pacific fish enter the Atlantic; and, 
from the depth and want of islands in the latter, the great 
bulk of species are diflferent on its different sides. Many 
families are common to the colder seas in both hemispheres; 
but the genera are mostly different, the species always. 

The British Islands lie between two great provinces of 
fishes — one to the south, the other to the north — from each 
of which we have occasional visitors. The centre of the 
first is on the coasts of the Spanish peninsula, extending into 
the Mediterranean. That on the north has its centre about 
the Zetland Islands ; but the group peculiarly British, and 
found nowhere else, has its focus in the Irish Sea. It is, 
however, mixed with fish from the seas bounding the west- 
ern shores of Central Europe, which form a distinct group. 

Prince Canino has shown that there are 853 species of 
European fish, of which 210 live in fresh water, 643 are ma- 
rine, and 60 of these go up rivers to spawm. 444 of the 
marine fish inhabit the Mediterranean, 216 are British, and 
171 are peculiar to the Scandinavian seas ; so that the Medi- 
terranean is richest in variety of species. In it there are 
peculiar sharks, sword-fish, dolphins, archovies, and six spe- 
cies of tunny, one of the largest of edible fish, for which 
fisheries are established in Elba, the Straits of Messina, and 
the Adriatic. Four of the species are found nowhere else 
but in the Mediterranean. Rays of numerous species are 
particularly characteristic of the Mediterranean, especially 
the two torpedos, which have the power of giving an elec- 
tric shock, and even the electric spark. The Mediterranean 
has two or three American species ; 41 fish in common with 
Madeira, one in common with the Red Sea, and a very few 
seem to be Indian. Some of these fish must have entered 
the Mediterranean before it was separated from the Red Sea 
by the Isthmus of Suez ; but geological changes have had 
very great influence on the distribution of fishes everywhere. 
Taking salt and fresh-water fish together, there are 100 spe- 
cies common to Italy and Britain ; and although the com- 



MIGRATORY FISH. 299 

munication with the Black Sea is so direct, there are only 
27 fish common to it and the Mediterranean ; but the Black 
Sea forms a district by itself, having its own peculiar fish ; 
and those in the Caspian Sea differ entirely from those in 
every other part of the globe. The island of Madeira, soli- 
tary amid a great expanse of ocean, has many species. 
They amount in number to half of those in Britain; and 
nearly as many are common to Britain and Madeira as to 
that island and the Mediterranean ; so that many of our fish 
have a wide range in the Atlantic. The Mediterranean 
certainly surpasses the British and Scandinavian seas in va- 
riety, though it is far inferior to either in the quantity or 
quality of useful fish. Cod, turbot, haddock, tusk, ling, her- 
ring, and many more, are better in northern seas than else- 
where, and several exist there only. 

Whales and sharks like deep water. Different species of 
sharks are in all tropical and temperate seas ; and, although 
always dangerous, they are more ferocious in some places 
than others, even where of the same species. 

The greater number of fish used by man as food frequent 
shoal water. The coast of Holland, our own shores, and 
other parts of the North Sea, where the water is shallow, 
teem with a never-ending supply of excellent fish, of many 
kinds. 

Vast numbers are gregarious and^ migratory. CofI arrive 
in the shallow parts of the coast of Norway in February, in 
shoals many yards deep, and so closely crowded together that 
the sounding-lead can hardly passbetw^een them : 16,000,000 
have been caught in one place in a few weeks. In April 
they return to the ocean. Herrings come in astonishing 
quantities in winter ; and lobsters are so plentiful among 
the rocks in Norway, that many hundred thousands are 
caught every year. 

The principal cod fisheries are on the banks of Newfound- 
land and the Dogger-bank. They, like all animals, frequent 
the places to which they have been accustomed. Herrings 
come to the same places for a series of years, and then desert 
them, perhaps from having exhausted the food. Pilchards, 
mackerel, and many others, may be mentioned among the 
gregarious and migratory fish. 

Most lakes have fish of peculiar species, as the lake Baikal. 
In the North American lakes there is a thick-scaled-fish, analo- 



300 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

gous to those of the early geological eras ; and the gillaroo trout, 
which is remarkable in having a gizzard, is found in Ireland 
only. Forty-four fish inhabit the British lakes and rivers, 
and fifty those of Scandinavia, of the very best kinds. The 
fresh-water fish of northern climates are better than those of 
the southern, as salmon of various species. 

Each tropical river has its own species of fish ; and sea- 
fish, in immense quantities, frequent the estuaries of rivers 
everywhere. The mouth of the Mississippi is full of fish ; 
and the quantity at the mouth of the Don, in the Sea of Azof, 
is prodigious. 

There are some singular analogies between the inhabitants 
of the sea and those of the land. Many of the medusae, two 
corallines, the sea-stag, and some others, sting. A cuttle- 
fish, at the Cape de Verde islands, changes colour like the 
caraeleon, assuming the tint of the ground under it. Her- 
rings, pilchards, and many other fish, as well as sea insects, 
are luminous. The medusa tribe, the species of which are 
numerous, have the faculty of shedding light in the highest 
degree. In warm climates, especially, the sea seems to be 
on fire, and the wake of a ship is like a vivid flame. Pro- 
bably fish that go below the depths to which the light of the 
sun penetrates are endowed with this faculty ; and shoals of 
luminous insects have been seen at a considerable depth 
below the surface of the water. The glow-worm, some 
beetles, and fire-flies, shine with the same pale green light. 
But among the terrestrial inhabitants there is nothing analo- 
gous to the property of the gymnotus electricus of South 
America, the trembler, or silurius electricus, of the African 
rivers, and the diflferent species of the torpedo of the Medi- 
terranean, besides many others, mostly of the ray kind, in 
various parts of the world, which possess the faculty of giving 
the electric shock. 

The marine mammalia form several families, all of which 
suckle their young. Fish require air like other animals, arid 
obtain it from the water by means of their gills ; but as the 
whale family are not fish, they are obliged to come to the 
surface of the sea to breathe, which they do through nos- 
trils.* Fat pervades every part of their body and bones, 
which makes them buoyant, and enables them to float with- 

* Narrative of a Whaling Voyage, round tlie World, by F. D. Bennett, 
Esq. - , 



MARINE MAMMALIA. 301 

out fatigue or effort ; and their blood is said to be warmer 
than that of land arriraals, so that they can bear the most 
intense cold. 

The first family of the whale tribe consists of herbivorous 
phocse, as lamantins and dugons, and of predatory phocse, 
as seals, and the morse or walrus, all of which have teeth 
and are amphibious, and some of the numerous species are 
found in every sea and in every latitude, but tlie herbivorous 
phocae are mostly intertropical. Lamantins are of various 
sizes and kinds ; the species which frequents the Antilles, 
the Orinoco, and Amazons, and other rivers in the warmer 
parts of America, generally known a§ the sea-cow, is about 
20 feet long, and has a round body, not unlike a sack of 
wine. It browses in herds on the herbage at the bottom 
and on the banks of streams, and when attacked the mother 
defends her young at the sacrifice of her own life, and .the 
cub folloW'S the dead body to the shore, so both fall an easy 
prey to the hunters. The dugon is not so round as the 
lamantin, and has a bristled snout ; different species feed in 
-flocks on the weeds at the bottom of shallow parts of the 
Indian Ocean, the Indian Archipelago, the coasts of Africa, 
New Holland, and the Red Sea, and never enter fresh water. 
They are so harmless and tame that they allow themselves 
to be handled, and they sit upright when they suckle their 
young, which has given rise to the fable of the Mermaid. 
This animal sacrifices her life for her young like the lamantin, 
and is the type of maternal affection among the Malays. 
The manatus septentrionalis is the. only herbiverous seal 
that is found in the Arctic Ocean ; it frequents the Spitz- 
bergen seas, but is very rare. 

The favourite haunts of the predatory seals are the. polar 
oceans and desert islands in high latitudes, where they bask 
in hundreds on the sunny shores during the brief summer of 
these inhospitable regions, and become an easy prey to man, 
w^ho has nearly extirpated the race in many places. Siv or 
seven species of seals are natives of Iceland, and two or three 
of Greenland. The common seal is six or seven feet long, 
with a face like that of a dog, and a large intelligent eye. 
It is easily tamed, and in the Orkney Islands it is so much 
domesticated that it follows its master, and helps him to 
catch fish. This seal migrates in herds from Greenland 
twice in the year, and returns again to its former haunts-; 
2o 



302 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

they probably come to the coasts of Europe and the British 
Islands at the time qf their migrations, but the phoca vetulina 
is a constant inhabitant of our. shores. Some of the, seal 
tribe have a very wide range, as- thje fur species, arctoce- 
phalus ursinus, of the Falkland Islands, which at one time 
frequented the southern coasts of New Holland in multi- 
tudes, but they and three other species have now become 
scarce from the indiscriminate slaughter of old and young. 
Sir James Ross found some of the islands in the Antarctic 
seas overrun wuth the. sea elephant moremga elephantina, 
and they captured a new species of seal without ears. The 
walrus or morse, a grim-looking creature, with tusks two 
feet Ions bent downwards, and its face covered with trans- 
parent bristles, has a body like that of a seal, 20 feet iong, 
wdth a coat of short grey or yellow hair. It sleeps -on the 
floating ice, feeds on sea-weeds and marine animals, and 
never leaves the Arctic seas. 

The second family of marine mammalia consists of spouting 
whales of predatory habits ; they live on fish, and conse- 
quently have teeth, such as porpoises, dolphins of many 
kinds, and spermaceti whales or cachelots ; these have 
spouting nostrils in the upper part of the head. The com- 
mon porpoise is seen spouting and tumbling on the surface 
of all the seas of Europe, shoals of them go in pursuit of 
herrings and mackerel, and even. swim up the rivers in chase 
of salmon. They have more the form of fish than the seal 
tribe, and have a dorsal fin. The common dolphins, so re- 
markable for voracity and for the swiftness of their motions, 
which is ownng to the symnjetry of their form and the wndth 
of their tail, are seen in almost every latitude and sea, but 
probably of different species. The white dolphin, eaten by 
the Icelanders, is 18 feet long, and migrates from the Atlantic 
to Greenland in the end of -November, The grampus, 
delphinus orca, possibly th'e same with the killer of the 
South Sea whalers, is a fierce voraciou^ fish, often 20 feet 
long, which roams in numerous shoals, preying upon the 
larger fish, and even attacking the whale. The grind or 
black dolphin has been known to run ashore in hundreds in 
the bays of Feroe, Orkney, and Zetland. This seems to be 
the same or nearly allied to the black fish, which was met 
with in vast numbers bj Sir James Ross in the Antarctic 
seas : they had so little fear, that they darted below the ship 



SPEEMACETI WHALES. 303 

on one side and came up at the other. The right white 
porpoise, delphinus peronii, of the southern whalers, is a 
rare and elegant species of dolphin which chiefly inhabits 
the high southern ktitudes, but has been seen at the equator 
in the Pacific. They are about six feet long, the hinder 
part of the head, the back, and the flukes of their tail are 
black, and all the rest of the purest white. The narwhal or 
sea unicorn, raonodon raonoceros, has no te_eth, but a tusk 
of fine ivory wreathed with a spiral grove extending eight 
or ten feet straight from the head ; in 'general there is only 
one tusk, but there are always the rudiments of another, and 
occasionally both grow to an equal length. The old nar- 
whals are white with blackish spots, the young are dark- 
coloured. This singular creature, which is about 16 feet 
long without the tusk, swims with great swiftness. Mr. 
Scoresby has seen 15 or 20 at a time playing round his ship 
in the 'Arctic seas, and cros.sing their long tusks .in all direc- 
tions as if they were fencing ; they are found in all parts of 
the Northern Ocean. : 

Th€ spermaceti whale, the cachelot or physeter raacroce- 
phalus, iDelonging to the faimily of the predaceous spouters, 
is one of the most formidable inhabitants of the deep. Its 
average size is 60 feet long and 40 feet in circumference ; its 
head, equal to a third of its length, is extremely thick and 
blufit in front, with a throat wide enough to swallow a man. 
The proportionally small swimming paws or pectoral fins are 
at a short distance behind the head, and the tail, which is a 
horizontal triangle six or seven feet long, and 19 feet wide, 
with a notch b^etween the flukes, is the chief organ of progres- 
sive motion and defence. It has a hump of fat on its back, 
is of a dark colour, but with a very smooth clean skin. These 
sperm whales have one nostril on the top of their head, 
through which they throw in breathing a continued succes- 
sion of jets like smoke, at intervals of 15 or 20 minutes, after 
which they toss their tails high in the air and go head fore- 
most to vast depths, where they remain for an hour or an 
hour and a half, and then return again to the surface to 
breathe. The jet or spout is from six to eight feet high, and 
consists of air expired by the whale, condensed vapour, and 
particles of water. This whale has sperm-oil and spermaceti 
in every part of its body, but the latter is chiefly in a vast 
reservoir in its head, which makes it very buoyant, and am- 



304 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

bergris is sometimes found in the inside of the body, sup- 
posed to be from disease. These huge monsters, occasion- 
ally 75 feet long, go in great herds of 500 or 600, or schools, 
as the whalers call them. Females with their young, and 
two or three old males, generally form one company, and the 
young males another, while the old males feed and hunt 
singly. The sperm whales swim gracefully and equally, with 
their head above the water; but when a troop of them play 
on the surface of the water, some of these uncouth and gigantic 
creatures leap with the agility of a salmon several feet into 
the air, and fall down again heavily with a tremendous crash 
and noise like a cannon, driving the water up in lofty columns 
capped with foam. The fishery of the sperm whale is at- 
tended with great danger; not only the wounded animals, 
but its companions who come to its aid, sometimes fight des- 
perately, killing the wjialers and tossing them into the air 
with,,a sweep of their tremendous tails, or biting a boat in 
two- In 1820 the American whaler Essex was wrecked in 
the Pacific by a sperm whale ; it first gave the ship so severe 
a blow that it broke oflfpart of the keel, then retreating to a 
distance, it rushed furiously, and", with its -enormous head 
beat in a portion of the planks, and the people had just time 
to save themselves in the boa:ts when the vessel filled. They 
often lie and listen when suspicious of mischief. No part of 
the aqueous globe, except the Arctic seas, is free from their 
visits ; they have been seen in the Mediterranean, the British 
Channel, and even the Thames, but their chief resort is the 
deepest parts of the warmer seas within or near the tropics, 
and in the Antarctic Ocean, where they feed' on floating shell- 
fish and the sepia or cuttle-fish. 

The third and last family of marine mammalia are whale- 
bone whales, such as the Greenland whales and rorquals. 
Instead of teeth, the jaws of theseanimals are furnished with 
plates and filaments of whalebone, which are movable, and 
are. adapted to retain, as in" a net, the medusse and other small-^ 
marine animals that are the food of these colossal inhabitants 
of the deep. The common Greenland species, balffina mysti- 
cetus, was formerly much more numerous, but it is now 
chiefly confined to the very high northern latitudes; however 
should it be the same with the whale found tn such multi- 
tudes in shallow water on the coasts of the Pacific and in the 
Antarctic Ocean by Sir James Ross, it must have a very wide 



RORQUALS. 305 

range, but it is more probable that each pole has its own spe- 
cies. The Greenland whale is from 65 to 70 feet long, but 
they are so much persecuted that they probably never live 
long enough ta come to their full size. The head is very 
large, but the opening of the throat is so narrow that it can 
only swallow small animals. It has no dorsal fin : the swim- 
ming paws are about nine feet long, and the flat tail is half- 
moon shaped and notched in the middle. It has two spouts 
or nostrils, through which it throws jets like puffs of smoke 
some yards high. It only remains two or three minutes on 
the surface to breathe, and then goes under water for five or 
six. The back and tail are velvet-black, shaded in some 
places into grey, the rest is white : some are piebald. The 
capture of this whale is often attended with much cruelty, 
from their affection for their young; indeed the custom of 
killing the calf in order to capture the mother has ruined the 
fishery in several places, especially in New Zealand, where 
there were eight species of whales in vast abundance. 

Rorquals are also whalebone whales, differing somewhat 
in form from the common whale. One species is from 80 
to 100 feet long, the largest of marine animals. The bottle- 
nosed whale, a smaller species, was exceedingly numerous 
in the Arctic seas ; in the year 1809, 1100 were stranded in 
Huelfiord in Iceland. This whale travels to lower latitudes 
in pursuit of herrings and other fish. It had been caught on 
the coast of Norway as early as the year 890, and probably 
lontj before. The first northern navigators were not attracted 
by the whale as an object of commerce, but stumbled upon 
it in their search for a north-west passage to the Pacific. 
The hump-backed whale, balsena gibbosa, a rorqual 30 or 
40 feet long, is met with in small herds in the intertropical 
and southern regions of the Pacific and Atlantic : it is seldom 
molested by the whalers, and is very dangerous for boats, 
from the habit it has of leaping and rising suddenly to the 
surface. None of the senses of the whale tribe are very 
acute ; the whalebone whales alone have the sense of smell- 
ing, and although the sperm whale is immediately aware of 
a companion being harpooned at a very great distance, they 
do not hear well in air, and none have voice.* 

* Captain Scoresby's Arctic Voyages. 

26* 



306 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

DISTRIBUTION OF REPTILES— FROGS AND TOADS^SNAKES, SAU- 
RIANS, AND TORTOISES. 

Reptiles, more than any other class of animals, show the 
partial distribution of animated beings, because, being un- 
able to travel to any great distance, they have remained in 
the places wherein they were, originally stationed; and as 
they inhabit deserts, forests, and uncultivated ground, they 
have not been disturbed by man, who has only destroyed 
some individuals, but has not diminished the number of spe- 
cies, which is probably the same as ever it was. Few of the 
mammalia hybernate, or fall into a torpid state in winter, 
except the bear, marmot, bats, and some others. Their fat 
supplies the carbon consumed by the oxygen during their 
feeble and imperceptible respiration, and is wasted by the 
time the warm weather returns, which rouses them from their 
lethargy,- thin and extenuated. But reptiles, being colder 
blooded, bury themselves in the ground, and hybernate during 
the winter in cold and temperate climates. In hot countries, 
they fall into a state of torpor during the dry season, so that 
they have no occasion to wander either on account of tempe- 
rature or want of sustenance; and the few that do migrate 
in quest of food, always return to their old haunts. As the 
blood of reptiles receives only a small part of the oxygen they 
inhale, little heat and strength are generated ; consequently 
they are cold-blooded, and for the most part sluggish in their 
motions, which, however, are more varied than in quadru- 
peds ; but as some reptiles, as tortoises and lizards, breathe 
more frequently than others, there are consequently great dif- 
ferences in their energy and sensibility. There are four dis- 
tinct classes of reptiles — toads and frogs, serpents, lizards, 
and tortoises. These partakeofboth terrestrial and aquatic 
forms, and many are amphibious : they all increase in num- 
bers towards the equator, and few live in cold climates. 

The toad and frog class appoaches nearest to the nature of 
fishes, and forms a link between land and water animals. 



TOADS AND FROGS. 307 

As tadpoles they have tails and no feet, but when full grown, 
they generally acquire feet and lose their tails. Besides, in 
that early stage they are aquatic, and breathe by gills, like 
fishes ; but in a state of maturity they breathe by lungs, like 
quadrupeds, though some of the families always retain their 
gills and tails, and some never acquire feet. These animals 
have the -power of retarding and accelerating their respira- 
tion without stopping the circulation of their blood, so that 
they can resist heat and cold to a certain degree — a power 
most remarkable in the salamander, which forms part of this 
class, so varied in appearance and nature. Some, as toads 
and frogs, imbibe a quantity of water, which is evaporated 
through their skin more or less quickly. This keeps them 
at the temperature of the medium they live in, and the air 
they inhale through the skin is as necessary to their exist- 
ence as that which they breathe. 

The group of toads and frogs consists of four families, 
which have four feet, but neither necks nor tails; namely, 
frogs, hylas or rainettes, toads, and pipse. Frogs, which are 
amphibious, have no nails on their toes, and their hind legs 
are webbed, consequently fitted for swimming, which they 
do by leaps. There are 16 genera, and above 50 species, 
so that they are more numerous and more varied than any 
other reptile. Of the hyla, rainette, or tree-frog, there are 
60 species, all of the most vivid and brilliant tints, and 
several colours are frequently united on the same animal. 
They spend most of their lives on high trees, and their webbed 
feet have little cushions at the points of their toes, by means 
of which they can squeeze out the air from under their feet, 
and, by the pressure of the atmosphere, they adhere firmly 
to the under side of the smoothest leaf, exactly on the same 
principle by which flies walk on the ceiling of a room. The 
bufo, or toad, is the ugliest of the race; many are hideous, 
with swollen bodies and obtuse toes. They do not go into 
water, but frequent marshy, damp places, and only crawl, 
whereas the frog and hyla leap. They are much fewer than 
either of the other two families; only thirty species are known. 
The pipae are also toads of a still more disgusting form, and 
are distinguished from their congeners by having no tongue. 
There are only two species known. All these reptiles have 
voices, which are exceedingly varied ; they croak in concert, 
following a leader, and when he is tired another takes his 



308 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

place. One of the North American frogs croaks in bands ; 
one band begins, another answers, and a third replies, till 
the noise is heard at a great distance ; a pause then takes 
place, after which the croaking is renewed. Mr. Darwin 
mentions a little musical hyia at Rio de Janeiro, which croaks 
a kind of harmony in different notes. 

Toads and frogs are found in almost all parts of the earth, 
though very unequally and partially distributed. America 
has more than all the other countries taken together, and 
Europe the fewest. Six species of frogs, one rainette, and 
two toads, are European; and all, except four of the frogs, 
are also found in Asia and Africa. 

The law of circumscribed distribution is strongly marked 
in Asia ; for of ten species of frogs peculiar to that continent, 
three only are in the mainland, two are confined to Japan ; 
and of the five that are Javanese, one is also common to 
Amboina, and the other four to Bengal. The eight species 
of rainettes, or tree-frogs, are still more limited in their domi- 
cile : five of them are in Java only, and one in Japan. 
There are nine species of toad peculiar to Asia. 

None of these reptiles exist in the Galapagos Archipelago, 
nor in any of the innumerable islands in Oceanica, and there 
aire very few in Australia, but all peculiar. In Africa there 
are eight species of frogs, two or three of rainettes, and two 
of toads. One of the two species of pipas, more horrid in 
appearance than any toad, is very common at the Cape of 
Good Hope, and there only. 

The great extent of marshes, rivers, and forests, together 
with the heat of the climate, make America the very home 
of reptiles of this kind, and there they grow to a greater 
size than anywhere else: 23 species of frog, 27 species of 
tree-frog or rainette, and 21 of toads, are indigenous in that 
continent, not one of which is the same with any of those in 
the old world ; and most of those in South America are dif- 
ferent from those in the northern part of the continent, 
though they are sometimes replaced by analogous kinds. 
All these reptiles have abodes, with fixed demarcations, 
often of small extent. The pipa, or toad of Surinam, is the 
most horrid of the tribe ; the bufo agua, of Brazil, 10 or 12 
inches long, and the rana pipiens, of Carolina, are the 
largest. 

The second family of this class of reptiles have tails and 



SERPENTS. 309 

feet, as the salamanders, which are very like lizards, with a 
long round tail, and four feet. Some are terrestrial, and 
some are aquatic : the latter are known as tritons. Both are 
in Europe, but the greater number are American ; and the 
sirens are peculiar to the marshes and rice-grounds of Caro- 
lina. They are very like eels with two feet. The proteus 
anguinus is similar, but it has four little feet and a flat tail, 
and has been found nowhere but in the dark subterraneous 
caverns in Carniola. 

The third family of this class of reptiles is the csecilise, of 
which there are only eight species, all inhabitants of the warm 
parts of Asia, Africa, and America. They have a cylindri- 
cal body, without feet or neck, and move exactly as the ser- 
pent, so they seem to form the link between these reptiles and 
the class of i'rogs and toads. 

There are serpents in all hot and temperate countries, but 
they abound most in intertropical regions ; and whereve-r 
snakes exist, there also are some of the venomous kinds, 
but they are fewer specifically and individually than is gene- 
rally supposed. Of 263 species, only 57 are venomous, or 
about one in five, although that proportion is not everywhere 
the same. In sterile, open countries, the proportion of veno- 
mous snakes is greater than in those that are covered with 
vegetation. Thus, in New Holland, seven out of ten spe- 
cies are poisonous ; and in Africa, one of every two or three 
individuals is noxious. In general, however, the number of 
harmless individuals is 20 times as great as the number of 
the poisonous. 

The three great families of venomous serpents are the 
colubriform or adder-shaped snakes, sea-serpents, and the 
triangular-headed snakes. 

The adder-formed snakes are divided into three genera, 
the elaps tribe, which are slender like a cord, with a small 
head and of brilliant colours. There are four species in 
South America, of which two are confined to Guiana, and 
one to Surinam, while the other is found everywhere from 
Brazil to Carolina. There is only one in Africa, three in 
Australia, and the rest are in limited districts in tropical Asia, 
especially in Sumatra and Java ; and an entire genus is found 
only in India, and the islands of Ceylon and Java. The 
hooded snakes are the best known of this family, especially 
the spectacled or dancing snake of the Indian jugglers, 



310 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

which is common everywhere from Malabar to Sumatra, and 
two other species are only in Sumatra and Java. The three 
or four African species are chiefly at the Cape of Good Hope 
and on the Gold Coast ; but the most celebrated is that 
generally known as the Egyptian asp, which has been tamed 
by magicians of ancient and modern times, and is frequently 
figured in Egyptian monuments ; it derives some of its cele- 
brity -from Cleopatra's death. Two of the family inhabit 
New Holland, one of which is spectacled, but of a different 
species from that in India. 

All the seven species of sea-snakes are very venomous, 
and more ferocious than any other. They frequent the In- 
dian Ocean in shoals from, Malabar to the Philippine Islan-ds, 
but chiefly the Bay of Bengal ; they never enter fresh M'ater, 
nor do they ever land. 

The third venomous family consists of the triangular- 
headed serpents, rattle-snakes, and vipers. The first are of 
a hideous aspect, — -a large head,, broad at the- base like a 
heart, a wide mouth, with their hooked paisonous fangs 
strongly developed. They quietly watch their prey till it 
is within reach, then dart upon it, and inflict the deadly 
wound in a moment. There are four species of these for- 
midable snakes in the intertropical parts of South America, 
and in the warmer parts of North America. One species in 
the old world is to be met with everyw'here, from Ceylon to 
the Philippine Islands ; one is a native in Sumatra, Timor, 
and Celebes ; the rest are narrowly limitedin their abode ; 
two are confined to Java alone. Ceylon, Sumatra, Japan, 
and Tartary, have each a species of these serpents peculiar 
to itself. 

The rattle-snakes are all iVmerican— two in the warm dis- 
tricts of North America, and two in the intertropical parts of 
South America. One of the latter, however, has a hard 
horn at the end of its tail, instead of a rattle, and sometimes 
grows to the length of 10 feet, being the longest of the veno- 
mous snakes. 

Vipers come farther north than any other of the noxious 
tribe: two are Asiatic, though one is also commqn to Africa, 
which, however, has four peculiar to itself: and the only 
venomous serpents in Europe are three species of.viper, one 
of which is also spread over the neighbouring parts of Asia 
and Africa. The common viper inhabits all central Europe 



BOAS PYTHONS. 311 

and temperate Asia, even to Lake Baikal, in the Altai 
Mountains: it is also found in England and Sweden, but it 
does not go farther west than the Seine, nor does it pass the 
Alps. One which frequents dry soils, in the south-east of 
Europe, is in Styria, Greece, Dalmatia, and Sicily ; and the 
aspic -viper, which lives on rocky ground, inhabits France 
between the Seine and the Pyrenees, Switzerland, Italy, and 
Sicily. 

There are six families of harmless serpents, consisting of 
numerous species. Four of the families are terrestrial, their 
species are very limited in their domicile, the greater num- 
ber being confined to some of the islands of the Indian 
Archipelago, Ceylon, or to circumscribed districts in tropical 
Asia^ Africa, and America. Nine or ten species are Euro- 
pean, some of which are also found in Asia and Africa. 

Tree-serpents of various genera and numerous species live 
only in the great tropical forests of Asia and America, espe- 
cially in the latter. They are long and slender, the head 
foj- the most' part ending in a sharp, point, and generally 
green, though there are. some of brighter colours; many of 
these serpents are fierce, though not venomous ; some feed 
on birds, which they watch hanging by the tail from a 
bough. 

In all temperate and warm countries abounding in lakes 
and rivers, fresh-water snakes are numerous; some live in 
the water, but they mostly inhabit the banks near it; they 
.are excellent swimmers, and may be seen crossing lakes in 
shoals. America is particularly rich in them; there a;*e 
several in Europe and Asia, but they are rare in Africa, and 
none have been yet discovered in Australia. 

The boa is peculiarly American, though some smaller in 
size and differing in species are' found in Asia. The boa 
constrictor, generally from 9 to 12 feet long, lives in the 
great tropical forests of South America, where it watches its 
prey hanging from the boughs of trees. Two of smaller size 
have similar habits, and two are aquatic, one of which is 
sometimes 20 feet Jong, and another 6 feet ; the latter in- 
habits the rivers from the Amazons to Surinam. 

Pythons are the largest snakes of the eastern world ; oi>e 
species, which sometimes grows to the length of 20 feet, is 
spread from the western coast of Africa, throughout inter- 
tropical Asia to Java and China. Another, only 14 feet 



312 PHifSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

long, is confined to Malacca and some of the Sunda Islands. 
Two others are found only in the islands of Timor- and 
Saparua, and one in New Holland. There are only two 
species of acrochordi, which, like boas, and pythons, twist 
themselves round their victims and crush them to death : 
one aquatic, peculiar to Java; the other is a land snake, 
found everywhere through India to New Guinea. 

The West Indian Islands have the snakes of North and 
South America, and some peculiar ; the snakes of central 
America are little known. 

Saurians have representatives in every warm and tem- 
perate climate. The crocodile, from its size and ferocity, 
claims the first place. There are three genera of this family, 
all amphibious, living in rivers: the crocodile, common 
to the old and new continents ; the caiman, or aljigator, 
peculiar to America ; and the gavial, which comes nearer 
to the form of the fossil crocodile than any other, is limited 
to the Ganges and other great rivers of India. The various 
species of crocodiles are confined to local habitations : three 
are Asiatic ; two African, one of which is only in Sierra 
Leone ; two are peculiar to Madagascar; and in America 
there are two species of crocodiles and five of alligators. 
The American crocodiles inhabit the estuaries of great rivers ; 
the alligator never leaves fresh water. 

The alligators of the Mississippi, and of the rivers and 
marshes of Carolina, are more ferocious than those of South 
America, attacking men and animals ; they only prey in 
the^night; while in the water, they cannot swallow their 
food, but they drown the animal they have caught, hide it 
under water till it is putrid, and then bring it to land to 
eat it. Locality has considerable influence on the nature 
and habits of these animals ; in one spot they are very dan- 
gerous, while in another, at no great distance they are 
cowardly. Alligators are rarely more than 15 feet long, and 
are seen in great companies basking on the banks of rivers : 
their cry is like the roar of a bull ; in a storm they bellow loudly, 
and are said to be much afraid of some of the whale family 
that ascend the great American rivers. The female w^atches 
her eggs and her young for months, never losing sight of 
them ; but the male devours many of them when they go 
into the water. All animals of this class are covered with 
scales, those of the crocodile family are hard and impenetrable. 



LIZARDS. ' 313 

Lizards are chiefly distinguished from crocodiles by having 
a long, thin, forked tongue like that of the viper ; by their 
rapid motions, smaller size ; and by some peculiarities of 
form. 

The monitors, which are entirely confined to the old conti- 
nent, have the tail compressed laterally, which enables them 
to swim rapidly ; and they are furnished with strong sharp 
teeth. Many species inhabit Africa and India, especially 
the Indian Archipelago : the terrestrial crocodile of Hero- 
dotus is common on the deserts round Egypt ; and an 
aquatic species in the Nile, which devours the crocodile's 
eggs, is often represented on the ancient Egyptian monu- 
ments. 

Another group of the monitor family is peculiarly Ameri- 
can ; some of the species inhabiting the marshes in Guiana 
are six feet long. 

Lizards are very common ; more than eight or nine 
species are European : and the iguanians, which' differ 
from them only in the form of the tongue, are so nume- 
rous ill genera and species, that it would be in -vain to 
attempt to follow all their ramifications, which are, never- 
theless, distributed according- to the same laws with other 
creatures: but the dragons, only found in India, are too 
singular to be passed over. The dragon is in fact a lizard 
•'with wings of skin, which are spread along its sides and 
attached to its fore and hind feet, like fh-ose of the bat, and 
though they do not enable it to fly, they act like a' parachute 
when the animal leaps from bough to bough in pursuit of 
insects. Nocturnal lizards of many species inhabit the hat 
countries of both continents; they are not unlike sala- 
manders, but they have sharp claws, which they can draw 
in and conceal like those of a cat, and seize their prey. 
One of this species climbs on walls in all the countries round 
the Mediterranean. Chameleons are to be seen under every 
bush in North Africa ; and different species inhabit different 
districts and islands in Asia ; the only one that is European 
lives in Spain; it is also common to North Africa. 

The anolis, which lives on trees, replaces the chameleon 

in the hot regions of South America, and in the Antilles, 

having the property common to chameleons of changing its 

colour, but it is a more nimble and beautiful animal. In 

27 • . ■ 



314 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

New Holland, where every thing is anomalous, there is a 
lizard with a leaf-shaped tail. 

Skinks are exactly like serpents, with four very short feet 
and sharp nails on their claws, which burrow in the sands of 
Africa and Arabia : there is a species of gigantic black and 
yellow skinks in New Holland, and those in the islands of 
the Indian Archipelago are green, with blue tails. 

Two anomalous saurians of the genus am blyrhinchus were 
discd/ered by Mr. Darwin in the Galipagos Archipelago. 
One found only in the central islands is terrestrial, and in 
many places it has undermined the ground with its burrows ; 
the other is the only lizard known that lives on sea-weed, 
and inhabits the sea ; it is about four feet long, and hideously 
ugly, with feet partially webbed and a tail compressed late- 
rally. It basks on the beach, and in its marine habits and 
food it resembles, on a small scale, the huge monsters of a 
former creation. 

Tortoises are covered with a shell or buckler, but their 
heads, legs, and tail are free, covered with a wrinkled skin, 
and the animal can draw them into the shell when alarmed. 
The head is sometimes defended by a regular shield, and the 
jaws, instead of teeth, have a horny case. The upper 
buckler is rounded, and formed of eight pairs of plates sym- 
metrically disposed, and often very beautiful ; the under 
shell is flat, and consists of four pair of bones and one in 
the centre. One family of tortoises is terrestrial, two others 
are amphibious, one of which lives in fresh water, the other 
in tropical and warm seas. 

There are more land tortoises in Africa than in all the 
rest of the world, both specifically and individually. There 
are several European species, of which the Greek tortoise, 
common in all the countries round the Mediterranean, is the 
largest, being about a foot long ; it lives on insects and vege- 
tables, and burrows in the ground in winter. Some of the 
East Indian species are enormously large, above three feet 
long, and remarkable for the beautiful distribution of their 
colours; some species are peculiar to Brazil, one toDemarara, 
and one to North America. - 

There are two families of the fresh-water tortoises that live 
in ponds and ditches. The emys is very numerous in Ame- 
rica ; there are 15 species peculiar to the northern part of the 
continent, and four to the southern : only one has been found 



DISTRIBUTION OF REPTILES. 315 

in Africa, two in Europe and eight in Asia. South America 
is the country of the chelydse, which feed only when in the 
water ; there are none in North America, five in Africa, and 
one in Australia. 

The trionyx, or fresh-water turtle, lives in the great rivers 
and lakes in warm countries ; there are two species peculiar 
to North America : they are very large, eat birds, reptiles, 
and young crocodiles, and often are a prey to old ones. 
One is peculiar to the Nile, one to the Euphrates, but the 
Ganges is their principal abode ; there are four species which 
are constantly seen eating the bodies of the natives that are 
thrown into this sacred stream ; one of these turtles often 
weighs 24G pounds. The starred trionyx is in the rivers of 
Java only, and another kind is common also to the rivers of 
Borneo and Sumatra. 

The cheloniadae, or sea turtle, live in the seas of the torrid 
and temperate zones, to the 50th parallel of latitude, some 
eating algae, and others molluscas and radiated fish. Dif- 
ferent species are found in different parts. of the ocean. The 
green' turtle, of which there are many varieties, inhabits 
the intertropical Atlantic ; they are seen in shoals eating 
sea-weed at the bottom of the water along the coast, but 
they come to the mouth of rivers to lay their eggs in the 
sand. This turtle is often six or seven feet long, and weighs 
600 or 700 pounds; it is much esteemed for food, but the 
shell is of no value. There are two species in the Mediter- 
ranean, which are only valued for the oil. 

With respect to the whole class of reptiles it may be ob- 
served, that not one species is common to the old and new 
world, and few are common to North and South America; 
those in New Holland are altogether peculiar ; and, with 
the exception of the Marianne Islands, there are neither toads, 
frogs, nor snakes in any of the islands of Oceanica, though 
the Indian Archipelago abounds in them. 

Five species of reptiles only had reached Ireland before 
its separation from England, a lizard, a frog, a toad, and two 
tritons. 



316 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

DISTRIBUTION OF BIRDS IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS IN EUROPE, 

ASIA, AFRICA, AMERICA, AND THE ANTARCTIC REGIONS. 

There is great similarity in the birds of the northern parts- 
of the old and new continents, and many are identical. 
Towards the south, the forms differ more and more, till in 
the tropical and south temperate zones of Asia, Africa, and 
America they become entirely different, whole families and 
genera often being stationary within very narrow limits. 
Some birds, however, are almost universal, especially birds 
of prey, waders, and sea-fowl. 

The bald buzzard is in every country, from Europe to 
Australia ; the Chinese gosshawk inhabits the American 
continent, and every station between China and the west 
coast of Europe ; the peregrine falcon lives in Europe^^ 
America, and Australia; the common and purple herons are 
indigenous in the old continent and the new ; and the flamingo 
fishes in almost every tropical river. Many of the sea-fowl 
also are widely spread : the wagel-gull is at home in the 
northern and southern oceans, and on the coasts of Australia. 
Captain Beechey's ship was accompanied by pintadoes during 
a voyage of 5000 miles in the Pacific ; and even the common 
house-sparrow is as much at home in the villagesin Bengal 
as it is in Britain. Many more instances might be given, 
but they do not interfere with the general law of special 
distribution. 

Birds migrate to very great distances in search of food, 
passing the winter in one country and the summer in another, 
many breeding in both. In cold climates insects die or 
hybernate during winter ; between the tropics, they either 
perish or sleep in the dry season : so that, in both cases, 
insect-eating birds are compelled, to migrate. When the 
ground is covered with snow, the want of corn and seeds 
forces those kinds whose food is vegetable to seek it else- 
where ; and in tropical countries the annual inundatibns of 
the rivers regulate the migrations of birds that feed on fish. 



MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 317 

Some migrate singly, some in groups, others in flocks of 
thousands ; and, in most instances, the old and the young 
birds go separately. Those that fly in company generally 
have a leader, and such as fly in smaller numbers observe 
a certain order. Wild swans fly in the form of a wedge, 
wild geese in a line. Some birds are silent in their flight, 
others utter constant cries, especially those that migrate during 
night, to keep the flock together, as herons, goat-suckers, 
and rails. 

Birds of passage in confiaement show the most insur- 
mountable disquietude when the time of migration draws 
near. The Canadian duck rushes impetuously to the north 
at the usual period of summer flight. Redbreasts, gold- 
finches, and oriols, brought from Canada to the United States 
when young, dart northwards, as if guided by the compass, 
as soon as they are set at liberty. Birds return to the same 
place year after year. Storks and swallows take possession 
of their former nests, and the times of their departure are 
exact even to a day. Various European birds spend the 
winter in Asia and Africa ; while many natives of these 
countries come to Central Europe in summer. 

The birds of passage in America are more numerous, both 
in species and individually, than in any other country. 
Ducks, geese, and pigeons migrate in myriads from the 
severity of the northern winters ; and when there is a failure 
of grain in the south, diti'erent families of birds go to the 
north. The Virginian partridge crosses the Delaware and 
goes to Pennsylvania, when grain is scarce in New Jersey ; 
but it is so heavy on the wing, that many fall into the river, 
and end the journey by swimming. The same thing happens 
to the wild turkey, which is caught in hundreds as it arrives 
wet on the banks of the Ohio, Missouri, and Mississippi. 
These birds are not fitted for long flight by their structure, 
because their bones have fewer of those air-cells which give 
buoyancy to the feathered tribes. The number of air-cells 
is greatest in birds that have to sustain a continued and 
rapid flight ; probably the extremes are to be met with in 
the swift and the ostrich — the one ever on the wing, the other 
never. The strength of the ostrich is in the muscles of its 
legs ; while the muscles on the breast of the swift weigh 
more than all the rest of the body : hence it flies at the rate of 
100 miles an hour easily. The wild duck and the wild pigeon 
27* 



318 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

fly between 400 and 500 miles in a day. The stork and 
some other migratory birds do not halt till the end of their 
journey. Many sea-fowl are never seen to rest ; and all the 
eagles, vultures, and hawks are birds of strong flight and 
capable of sustaining themselves at heights beyond the reach 
of less buoyant creatures. 



DISTRIBUTION OF ARCTIC AND EUROPEAN 
BIRDS. 

The birds of Europe and North America are better known 
than those of any part of the globe. New species are con- 
stantly discovered in Asia, Africa, and South America : and 
extensive regions in the east are yet unexplored : however, 
about 6000 have already been described. 

There are 503 species of birds in Europe, many of which 
are distributed over Asia and Africa, without any apparent 
variation ; and 100 of our European species are also in North 
America. Of these, 39 are land-birds, 28 waders, and 62 
water-fowl ; among which are most of the marine birds of 
northern Europe, which, like all sea-fowl, have a wider 
range. 

More than three-fourths of the species, and a much larger 
proportion of individuals, of the birds of Greenland, Ice- 
land, and Feroe, are more or less aquatic, and many of the 
remainder are only occasional visitors. Of the few small 
birds, the greater number are British ; but many that reside 
constantly in Britain are rhigratory in Iceland and Feroe, 
anil all the small birds leave Greenland in winter. The 
aquila albicilla, or cinereous eagle, is the largest bird of 
these northern islands ; it feeds on salmon and trout, and 
builds its nest on the boldest crags. The jer-falcon, or falco 
Icelandicus, though native, is rare even in Iceland. The 
snowy owl lives near the glaciers in the interior of Green- 
land, and is sometimes seen in Orkney. Particular kinds of 
grouse are peculiar to high latitudes, as the ptarmigan and 
the white grouse. The columba ajnas lives on all the rocky 
coasts of Europe, and it is also an American bird. The 
crow family are inhabitants of every part of the globe. The 
common crow is universal ; the carrion-crow and jackdaw 
are all over Europe and North America. The magpie is 



SWANS— EIDER-DUCKS. 319 

everywhere in Europe. The jay, one of the most beautiful 
birds of its tribe, is found in Europe, North America, and 
China. The raven is everywhere, from Greenland to the 
Cape of Good Hope, and from Hudson's Bay to Mexico ; it 
is capable of enduring the extremes of heat and cold, and is 
larger, stronger, and more ravenous in the Arctic islands 
than anywhere else. It destroys sheep and lambs, drives 
the eider-ducks from their nest to take their eggs or young, 
and they unite in flocks to chase intruding birds from their 
abode. 

Waders are more numerous than land-birds in the Arctic 
regions. The snipe is a resident ; the golden plover is in 
Feroe ordy ; and the oyster-catcher remains all the year in 
Iceland : it makes its nest near streams, and wages war with 
the crow tribe. The heron, curlew, plover, and most of the 
other waders, emigrate. 

Web-footed birds, being clothed with down and oily fea- 
thers, are best able to resist the cold of a polar climate. 
■The cygnus musicus, or whistling swan, is the largest migra- 
tory bird of Europe or America. It is five feet long from 
the tip of the bill to the end of the tail, and eight feet from 
tip to tip of the wings : its plumage is pure white, tinged 
orange or yellow on the head. Some of them winter in 
Iceland ; and in the long Arctic night their song is h^ard, 
as they pass in flocks : it is like the notes of a violin. Vari- 
ous species of the duck tribe live in the far north, in prodi- 
gious multitudes. The mallard, supposed to be the origin 
of our tame duck, is everywhere in the Arctic lands. There 
are two species of the eider-duck : the king duck, or somateria 
spectabilis, one of these, is widely dispersed over the islands 
and coasts of the North Atlantic ; it lives in the open sea in 
winter, and resorts to th« coast when the grass begins to 
grow. The duck makes her nest of sea-weed, lined with 
down from her breast. The islanders take the eggs and 
down twice in the season ; but they do not kill the old birds, 
because the down of a dead duck is of no value, having lost 
its elasticity. The third time the drake repairs the nest with 
down from his breast : the birds are allowed to hatch their 
brood ; and, as soon as the young can feed themselves, they 
are taken out to sea by the duck. They attain maturity in 
four years, and then measure two feet from tip to tip of the 
wing. The same couple has been known to frequent a nest 



320 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

20 years, and the Icelanders think the eider-duck lives 
to 100. 

The cormorant is universal in the northern seas, and, 
though living on fish, it is eaten by the natives. It sits 
singly, or sometimes in flocks, on the rocks, watching the 
fish with its keen eye: it plunges after them, and pursues 
them for three or four minutes under water. Auks are very 
numerous, especially the razor-billed auk, or penguin ; but 
the great auk, which is incapable of flight with its little wings, 
is now extinct in the Arctic islands. The tern or sea-swal- 
low, is seen everywhere in these seas, skimming along the 
surface of the water, catching molluscas and small fish. 
Gulls of many species, and in countless numbers, are inhabi- 
tants of the Arctic and Antarctic regions. No birds are 
more widely dispersed. They are at home, and brave the 
storm, in every latitude and in every sea; but those in the 
north are said to be larger and more numerous than else- 
where. There are nine or ten species in the Arctic regions, 
and the most numerous of these probably are the kitty wakes, 
the young of which cover the rocks in Iceland, packed so 
closely together, that 50 are killed at a shot. 

The skua is one of the boldest and most rapacious of 
birds, forming a link between gulls and birds of prey. It 
lives by robbing other birds, and is so audacious that it 
forces the gulls to disgorge the fish they have swallowed, 
and has been seen to kill a puffin at a single blow. Its head- 
quarters are in Feroe, Zetland, and the Hebrides, where it 
hatches its brood, and attacks men or animals if they come 
near them. 

Several kinds of petrels inhabit the Arctic islands. They 
take their name from the faculty they have of walking on the 
water, which they do by the aid of their wiiigs. The stormy 
petrel, the most widely diffused, is about the size of a lark, 
and nearly of the colour ; their flight is rapid ; they shelter 
themselves from the storm in the hollow of a wave, and go 
to land only at the breeding season. 

It is observed that all birds living on islands fly against 
the wind when they go to sea, so as to have a fair wind when 
they return home tired. The direction of the prevailing 
winds, consequently, has great influence on the choice of 
their abode : for example, the 25 bird-rocks, or Vogel-berg, 
in Feroe, face the west or north-west ; and no bird frequents 



GREGARIOUS MARINE BIRDS. 321 

the cliffs facing the east, though the situation is to all appear- 
ance equally good ; a preference accounted for by the preva- 
lence of westerly wind in these latitudes. 

Most marine birds are gregarious. They build their nests 
on the same rock, and live in society. Of this a curious in- 
stance occurs on the rocks in question. The Vogel-berg lies 
in a frightful chasm among the cliffs of Westmannshaven in 
Feroe. The chasm is encompassed by rocks 1000 feet high, 
and myriads of sea-fowl cluster round the top of the crags ; 
but different kinds have separate habitations ; and no race or 
individual leaves his own quarters, or ventures to intrude 
upon his neighbours. 

Upon some low rocks, scarcely rising above the surface of 
the water, sits the glossy cormorant ; the predatory skuas, 
on a higher shelf, are anxiously regarded by myriads of 
kitty wakes on nests in crowded rows along the shelving 
rock above, with nothing visible but the heads of the 
mothers almost touching one another ; the auks and guille- 
mots are seated a stage higher on the narrow shelves, in 
order as on a parade, with their white breasts facing the sea, 
and in absolute contact. The puffins form the summit of 
this feathered pyramid, perched on the highest station, and 
scarcely discernible from its height, if they did not betray 
themselves by flying backwards and forwards. Some of 
these tribes have a watch posted to look out for their safety ; 
and such confidence has the flock in his vigilance, that if he 
is taken the rest are easily caught. When the whole take 
flight, the ear is stunned by their discordant screams.* 

The greater part of the marine birds of the Arctic seas are 
inhabitants also of the northern coasts of the continent of 
Europe and of the British Islands. 

No part of Europe is richer in birds than Britain, both in 
species and numbers of individuals; and the larger game is 
so abundant, that no one thinks of eating nightingales and 
redbreasts. Of the 503 species of European birds, 277 are 
native in our islands. The common grouse, the yellow and 
pied wagtails, and the English starling, are found nowhere 
else. Most of the British birds came from Germany before 
the separation of our island from the continent, and many of 
short flight never reached Ireland. The ptarmigans and 
capercaily came from Norway. 

• Trevelyan's Travels in Iceland and the Feroe Islands. 



322 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

There are five European vultures : the lamraergeyer of 
the Alps and Pyrenees, the largest of these, builds its nest in 
the most inaccessible parts of the mountains, and is seldom 
seen ; it lives also in the mountains of Abyssinia and on the 
Mongolian steppes. Ten eagles are European ; one is pecu- 
liar to Sardinia ; and several of them are common in America: 
the golden eagle is one ; that beautiful bird, which once 
gave ci characteristic wildness to our Scotch mountains, and 
the distinguishing feather to the bonnet of our chieftains, is 
now nearly extirpated. The osprey or fishing eagle is 
equally an inhabitant of Europe and America, and so are 
some of our numerous hawks ; among others the jer or gen- 
til falcon has been so much destroyed, that it is now rare even 
in Iceland, its native place : there are still a few in Scotland, 
and several are caught in their migratory flight over the Low 
Countries, and reclaimed by the expert falconers for the now 
nearly obsolete sport of falconry. 

The owl tribe is numerous, and many of them are very 
handsome. The bubo raaximus, the great owl, the largest 
of nocturnal birds, inhabits the forests of middle and south- 
ern Europe ; it is rare in France and England, though not 
uncommon in Ireland and Orkney: in Italy a small owl is 
tamed and used as a decoy. 

Owls, eagles, and hawks have representatives in every 
country,but of different species. The two species of European 
goat-suckers migrate to Africa in winter; their peculiar cry 
may be heard on a moonlight night when a large flock takes 
wing for the journey. Several of our swallows go to Africa : 
both our kingfishers are African, and only visit us in sum- 
mer ; one, the alcyone ispida, is a native of Lower Egypt 
and the Ked Sea. Some of the seven species of European 
creeping birds, or certhias, creep on the trunks and branches 
of trees in search of insects ; others pursue their prey clinging 
to the face of rocks and walls, supported by the stiff elastic 
feathers of the tail : the hoopoe, an inhabitant of southern 
Europe, is also a creeper, but it pursues small reptiles and 
insects on the ground. 

The Sylvias and thickbilled binls are by much the most 
characteristic of Europe ; to them belong our finest song- 
sters. The Sylvias have soft beaks, and feed on insects and 
worms ; the nightingale, thrush, blackbird, wren, the bec- 
cafico, the smallest of European birds, the warblers, white- 



PIGEONS GALLINACEOUS BIRDS. 323 

throat, and others, are of this family. Thick-billed birds 
live on seed, as the goldfinch and other finches, linnets, 
larks, buntings, and crossbeaks. 

Four species of fly-catchers are peculiar to Europe, and five 
species of shrikes. Ravens, crows, jays, and magpies, are 
everywhere ; the Alpine crow and nutcracker are in central 
Europe only. Compared with America the starling family is 
poor, and the woodpecker race still more so, yet we have six 
species, some of which are very beautiful. There is only one 
cuckoo entirely European,the other two kinds only come acci- 
dentally, and all are birds of passage. There are four species 
of the pigeon tribe ; the ringdove frequents the larch forests, 
and is migratory ; the stockdove also leaves us in October ; 
the biset or rock pigeon, supposed to be the origin from which 
the infinite variety of our domestic pigeons has sprung, flies 
in flocks, and makes its flimsy nest «n trees and rocks; it is 
also found in the Da-ouria part of the Altai chain. Of gal- 
linaceous birds there are many ; the only native pheasant is 
in the southwestern parts of the continent ; and the caper- 
caily, extinct in the British forests, inhabits many parts of 
Europe, in Scandinavia especially it is plentiful as far as the 
pine-tree grows, which is nearly to Cape North, and also in 
the Russian forests. The hazel-grouse frequents the pine 
and aspen forests in central and northern Europe, where the 
black cock also is plentiful. Five species of grouse and six 
of partridges afford abundance of game ; four of the latter 
are confined to the southern parts of the continent, and so 
are the sand and pen-tailed grouse, which form a separate 
family ; the former inhabits the sterile plains of Andalusia 
and Granada, and the latter the stony uncultivated parts of 
France, southern Italy, and Sicily. The ortigis gibraltarica 
is a peculiar bird allie^^d to the grouse family, found in the 
south of Europe only. 

European waders are very numerous, and among them 
there are specimens of all the genera: woodcocks, snipes, 
plovers, curlews, and grebes, are very abundant, and herons 
of various species ; three of them are egrets or crested herons, 
and the common heron now assembles on the tops of trees 
unmolested, since the progress of agriculture has rendered 
the country unfit for hawking. Several cranes and storks, 
and two species of ibis, are European : the flamingo is met 
with in the south-eastern parts of the continent, and in the 



324 PHYSICAL GEOGKAPHY. 

maremme on the east coast of Italy. Many of the wading 
tribes, however, migrate in winter. The stork, so great a 
favourite in Holland that it is specially protected, is a wan- 
derer; it retreats to Asia Minor, and on the return of sum- 
mer resumes its old nest on a chimney-top, breeding in both 
countries. Europe is particularly rich in web-footed birds ; 
there arS four species of wild swans, four of wild geese, and 
more than 30 of the duck tribe, including the inhabitants of 
the Arctic seas. 



BIRDS OF ASIA AND THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 

European birds are widely spread over Asia ; most of the 
Arctic sea-fowl frequent its northern coasts : between 50 and 
60 European birds are also Siberian, and there are above 70 
European species in Japan and Corea, which probably are 
^Iso inhabitants of Siberia and the Altai' Mountains, and se- 
veral are identical with the birds of North America, so that 
the same affinity prevails in the feathery tribes of the Arctic 
regions as in the vegetable productions. 

Asia Minor is a country of transition, and many European 
birds inhabit the Caucasus, the shores of the Caspian Sea, 
and Persia. Moreover these warmer climates are the winter- 
quarters of various European species. 

In Asia Minor, and especially in Armenia, the number and 
variety of birds is very great ; large eagles, vultures, falcons, 
buzzards, quails, partridges, starlings, herons, storks, cranes, 
legions of Arctic grebes, swans, wild geese, ducks and peli- 
cans, are natives of these countries; besides singing-birds, 
the nightingale, the constant theme of the poet's song, abounds 
in Persia : hawks are trained for hunting deer in that coun- 
try, and the Asiatic partridges, or francolins, more vividly 
coloured than ours, differ also in having beaks fitted for cog- 
ging up bulbous roots, which is their food in the deserts. 

Farther east the types become more Indian ; the great pe- 
ninsulas on each side of the Ganges are the habitations of the 
most peculiar and the most gorgeous of birds. Many spe- 
cies, and some entire genera, of kingfishers are here, of the 
gaudiest colouring; the plumage of the fly-catchers has the 
richest metallic lustre ; and the shrikes, of a sober hue with 
us, are there decked in the brightest colours : the drango has 



BIRDS OF ASIA. 325 

a coat of ultramarine, and the calyptomene has one of eme- 
rald green. .. 

The large-beaked climbing-birds are singularly handsome. 
The great green parrot, so easily taught to speak, has inha- 
bited the Indian forests and the banks of the Ganges time 
out of mind, with a host of family connections and congeners 
of every colour ; not one species of these, or indeed of the 
whole parrot tribe, is common to Asia, Africa, America, or 
Australia, nor even to any two of these great continents. 
They are vividly coloured in India, but the cuckoo tribe 
rivals them ; several genera of these birds exist nowhere else, 
as the large-beaked malcahos, the coucals with their stiff 
feathers, and the couroucous or trogons, dressed in vermi- 
lion and gold ; the last, however, also inhabit other tropical 
climates. 

Eastern Asia is distinguished by the variety of its galli- 
naceous birds and the gorgeousness of their plumage. To 
this country we owe some of our domestic fowls ; the cock 
and hen, and two species of peacock, are wild in the woods 
in India and Ceylon. The polyplectron, the only bird of its 
kind, and the trogopons, are Indian ; and some of the most 
brilliant birds of the East are among the pheasant tribe, of 
which five species are peculiar to China and Tibet. There 
are various species of the horned pheasant in the Himalaya, 
and one whose feathers have a metallic lustre. The gold, 
the silver, and Reeves' pheasant, the tail-feathers of which 
are four feet long, belong to China. The lophophorus re- 
fulgens, and some others of that genus, are altogether Indian. 

The pigeons also are very splendid in their plumage; they 
mostly belong to China and Japan ; those in the Birman 
Empire are green. 

It would be vain to enumerate the fine birds that range in 
the forests, or fish in the rivers of the Asiatic continent, yet 
the birds of the Indian Archipelago far surpass them in splen- 
dour of plumage; these islands indeed are the abode of the 
most gorgeously arrayed birds in existence. Even in Java 
and Sumatra, though most similar to India in their winged 
inhabitants, there are many peculiar, especially 12 or 13 spe- 
cies of the climbing tribe, and several of the honey-sucking 
kind; but the dissimilarity increases with the distance, as in 
New Guinea and its islands, where the honey-sucking genera 
are developed in novel forms and sumptuous plumage. 
28 



326 PPIYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

In the various islands of the archipelago there are altoge- 
ther at least 15 genera, with their numerous species, found 
there only. There are the cassicans, which resemble jays, 
with plumage of metallic lustre; the only two species of pi- 
rolls, one bright violet, the other of brilliant green; various 
species of calaoswith large horne4 beaks, „oriols of vivid co- 
lours, the swallow that builds the. edible nest, -and every va- 
riety of birds of paradise ; the most numerous and splendid 
sylvans, and all the species but one of the philedons or honey- 
sucking birds with tongues that end in a brush. The pigeons 
are peculiarly beautiful and numerous, but limited in their 
abode. The g.ouroa, or great crowned pigeon, the largest 
of its tribe, is an inhabitant of Borneo. ' Each island has its 
own species of louries, which exist nowhere el?!e ; many pe- 
culiar paroquets and cockatoos, couroucous or trogons, cou- 
cals, and the barbu, with huge beaks, are all peculiar to these- 
islands. Even the partridges have thrown aside their grave 
colours and assumed the vivid hues of the tropics, as the 
green and tufted cryptonex. But the other gallinaceous 
birds far surpass them, as the fire and the argus pheasant, and 
two or three species still more splendid, with a host of other 
birds already known, and multitudes-which Europeans never 
haye seen, in the deep jungles and impenetrable forests of 
these unexplored islands. 'Fhe casuary, a bird akin to the 
ostrich, without the -power of Hying, but fleet in its course, 
has a wide range in these countries, and, though destitute of 
beauty, is interesting from its peculiar location and the cha- 
.racter of the whole race. 



AFRICAN BIRDS. 

A great number of European birds are also inhabitants of 
Africa, and many migrate there. in winter, yet the birds of 
this continent are very peculiar and characteristic ; those in 
the north and north-east, and at the Cape of Good Hope, are 
best known, but the greater part of tropical Africa is still un- 
explored. It may be observed,^enerally, that the tropical 
birds differ frorii thoseof North Africa, but are, with a few 
exceptions, the same with those in the southern, paYt of the 
continent, and the whole of Africa south of the desert differs 
in species from those of north and western Africa and from 



BlKDS OF AFRICA;:.^- 327 

Europe. Moreover, there is a strong analogy, though no 
affinity, between the birds of Africa and America in the 
same parallels of latitude ; there is not a single perching 
bird common to the two, though some of the rapacious are 
in both. 

There are 59 species of birds of prey, of which a few are 
also European. The secretary bird is the most singular of 
this order: it is a vulture which preys upon serpents at the 
Cape of Good Hope, in Abyssinia, and other parts of the con- 
tinent. Africa possesses at least 300 species of the passerine 
order, of which 10 genera, with all their species, are pecu- 
liarly its own. The sw^allows are' more beautiful, thaii ours, 
especially the cecropis striata, with two tail-feathers twice as 
long as its body. Many kingfishers, the most beautifully 
coloured of t-lieir brilliant race, frequent the lakes and rivers ; 
four speciesof hoopoes, one of which visits Europe in summer, 
are natives ; and the honey-birds, the representatives of the 
humming-birds of South America, are peculiarly African. 
They abound at the Cape of Good Hope, where the necta- 
ries of proteas and other plants produce the s'acciiarine juice 
which is their food. The malurus Africanus, and many other 
singing-birds for the most part unknown elsewhere, inhabit 
the forests. The canary-bird is confined to the Canary Is- 
lands ; its song differs in ditlerent parts, and even in two ad- 
jacent districts : there' are, -however, other insXances of this. 
The capirote,'also indigenous in the Canary Islanfis, is a finer 
songster, but it cannot be tamed. Various shrikes are pecu- 
liar to Africa, but the species known as the grand baratra is 
confined to the Azores. There are several birds of the raven 
tribe, or nearly akin to them : as the lampratornis superba ; 
another with purple wings, the buphaga, the only b-ird of its 
genus ; and several species of the calaos. The weaving-bird, 
or teXtor, is one of the most remarkable of the graminivorous 
tribe ; it weaves its nest with grass and twigs very dexter- 
ously: one brought to Europe wove a quantity of thread 
among the wires of its cage, with great assiduity, into a strong 
texture. The widow-bird, . the calious, .the bhje bee-eater, 
and all the fly-catching touracous, with many species of 
woodpeckers, are found nowhere else; ■ .The parrots and pa- 
roquets, which sv,rarm in the tropical forests, from the size of 
a hen to that of a sparrow, are of original forms. The tro- 
gons, or couroucous, the most beautiful of the large-beaked 



328 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

climbing-birds, are the same as in Asia; but the barbu and 
the four species of barbicans are altogether African, and so 
are some of the cuckoos. Among the latter are two species 
of the cuculus indicator, so named from indicating where the 
bees have their nests ; one is peculiar to Abyssinia, the other 
to the interior at the Cape of Good Hope ; and mocking-birds 
are spread over a wide extent of this continent. 

There are at least 13 species of African pigeons; and to 
Africa we are indebted for the guinea-fowl, of which there 
are three or four kinds: it wanders in flocks of hundreds 
among the brushwood on the banks of rivers and lakes in 
Numidia and all the tropical regions, and they are even 
more abundant in Madagascar. Many grouse and partridges 
are peculiar, especially the gangas, of which there are five 
species : some go in coveys, and others traverse the deserts 
in flocks of many hundreds. The sand-grouse, one of this 
family, is much more abundant on the arid deserts of North 
Africa than in Europe ; and the partridges of this country 
are francolins which feed on bulbous roots. 

The ostrich takes the wide range of Africa and Arabia ; 
the bird of the desert, and bustards, also wanderers in the 
plains, are numerous : the most peculiar are the rhaad and 
the Otis kori, in South Africa, five feet high, and remarkable 
for the brilliancy of its eye. 

Waders of infinite variety inhabit the rivers, lakes, and 
marshes — w^oodcocks, snipes, plovers, storks, cranes, herons, 
and spoonbills. The most peculiar are the dromes and 
marabous, whose feathers form a considerable article of com- 
merce ; the cream-coloured plover, the scopus or umbrette, 
the water-treader of Abyssinia, and the tantalus tribe, among 
which is the falcinellus, known in Africa only, and the ibis, 
once held sacred in Egypt, and frequently found in mummies 
in the catacombs. 

Swimming-birds arc no less numerous : the bernicla 
cyanaptera'is a goose peculiar to Shoa ; the rhyncliops and 
pelicans, several of the duck kind or birds allied to them, 
are found nowhere else. - 

BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA. 

Of 471 species of North American birds, about 1 00 are also 
found in Europe, the greater number of which are water- 



BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA. 329 

fowl, and those common to the northern coasts of both con- 
tinents. The sea-fowl on the North Pacific and Behring's 
Straits are very much the same with those in the Greenland 
seas and the North Atlantic, bu-t the great awk or penguin, 
with featherless wings, still exists on the North Pacific, and 
the great albatross, seldom seen in the North Atlantic, fre'- 
quents Behring's Straits and the western coasts of North 
America in immense flocks. It is almost uniyersal in the 
Pacific and in the stormy regions towards each pole. Like 
Mother-Cary's-chickens, it is .a bird of the storm, sailing 
calmly on its huge wings in the most tremendous tempests, 
and following a, ship a whole day without resting on the 
waves : it is thelargest of sea-fowls ; some measure 17 feet 
from tip to tip of the wings. 

There is no vulture common to the two continents, but 
there are five eagles, half of the other birds of prey, a fourth 
part of the crow tribe, several waders and web-footed birds 
wdiich inhabit both; yet the -general character of North 
American birds is different from that of European : 81 
American generic forms and two families are not found in 
Europe. The humming-birds are altogether American; 
only four species are in North America; one of these is 
migratory, and another is common to South America. The. 
parrot family, distributed with generic differences in almost 
all tropical countries, has but one representative here, which 
lives in the forests of the Carolinas. Europe has. nothing 
analogous to these two families. It is singular that a country 
with so many rivers and lakes should possess only one king- 
fisher. The woods are filled with many species of creeping 
birds, arid there are 68 peculiar species of sylvias and dy- 
catehers ; among others the todus viridi^, which forms a 
genus by itself. Ravens, crows, pies, and jays abound, and 
there are 13 species of starlings. The finch tribe are very 
numerous, and there are 16 species of woodpeckers, as might, 
be expected in a country covered with forests. Of pigeons 
there are eight species, but individually they are innume- 
rable, especially the columba migratoria, which passes over 
Canada and the northern StateS in myriads for successive 
days twice in the year. The poultry-yard is indebted to 
N'orth America for the turkey, which there ranges wild in 
its native woods and attains great size. There are no par- 
tridges, and of 13 American species of grouse three are 
28* 



330 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

European, a family which exists in every country under dif- 
ferent forms. The vast expanse of water and marshy ground 
makes North America the home of water-fowl and waders 
without end. Most of the waders and graminivorous birds 
are migratory ; in winter they find no food north of the great 
lakes, where the ground is frozen upwards of six months in 
the year. Many pass the winter in California, as storks and 
cranes ; wild geese cover acres of ground near the sea, and 
when they take wing their clang is heard far off. Blackbirds 
are as numerous ; even gulls and other northern sea-fowl 
come to the coasts of California, and indeed to the shores of 
all the north and temperate Pacific. 

It may be said generally that, with regard to the web- 
footed tribe. North America possesses specimens of all the 
genera of the old world and many peculiarly its own. The 
table-land of Mexico has some peculiar forms, and some 
species of swimming-birds" found only in 7"nore northern lati- 
tudes ; but, except the ampelidas, there are representatives 
of every group of North and South America. 



BIRDS OF SOUTH AMERICA. 

The tenants of the air in South America differ more from 
those in North America than these do from the birds of 
Europe : there are not more than 50 or 60 species in com- 
mon. South America has a greater variety of original forms 
than any other country ; more than 25 genera with all their 
species inhabit that country only ; of the passerine family 
alone there are at least 1000 species, all peculiar. The vul- 
tures are of different genera from those in Europe : the 
condor of the Andes is the largest of these ; it is so fierce 
that it even attacks the puma, the lion of America ; it fre- 
quents the highest pinnacles of the Andes in summer, and 
soars to the height of 15,000 feet above the earth. In winter 
it descends in groups to feed on the plains and sea-shore ; 
and, like all the vulture race, it possesses the faculty of 
descrying a dead or dying animal long before it is itself 
visible in the air : it never goes beyond the isthmus of 
Panama : the condor of California is a smaller bird. The 
three species of the vultur papa, or king of the vultures, are 
remarkable for the bright blue and vermilion colour of the 



BIRDS OF SOUTH AMERICA. 331 

head and neck ; the black vulturie lives in large assemblies 
on the tops of high trees in the sylvas, and another nume- 
rous species prey on animals in the llanos. Many other 
rapacious birds are peculiar to this continent ; the burrowing 
owl, so common in the Pampas and Chili, is one of these. 
The guachero forms a genus by itself; it is of the size of a 
common fowl, with the form and beak of a vulture, and is 
the only instance known of a nocturnal bird feeding on fruit. 
It is confined to a limited district of Cumana, and shuns the 
light : incredible numbers have taken possession of a dark 
cavern in the valley of Caripa, where they are killed in 
thousands every year by the Indians for their fat. 

The troupials represent our oriols, the baratras and becardes 
our shrikes, while the tangaras partake of the form both of 
the shrike and pie, which last, with all the r€st of the crow 
family, have various representatives in this country. Swal- 
lows, or birds allied to them, are numerous, and many that 
liveon the honeyed juice of flowers, like the humming-bird, 
so peculiarly characteristic of South America : 150 species 
of humming-birds, from the size of a wren to that of a hum- 
ble-bee, adorn the tropical regions of Brazil and Guiana. 
This family, so entirely American, has ji range from the 
Straits of Magellan to the 38th parallel of N. lat. and even 
to Cook's Straits. There is only one Souith American hum- 
ming-bird, which is also permanent in the United- States, and 
only two are found in Central America : many of them are 
migratory ; they come in multitudes to North Chili in sum- 
mer and disappear in winter. The climbing-birds, with 
large bills, are mostly confined to the tropical forests, which 
swarm with peculiar races of parrots, paroquets, and macaws, 
and with whole families of birds not to be seen elsewhere ; 
as the vividly-coloured toucan, with its huge beak ; the 
auraucari, which lives on the fruit of the auraucari pine ; 
some peculiar species of the gorgeous trogons or couroucous ; 
the tomalias, birds related to the cuckoo tribe ; and the 
jacmars, which represent the woodpeckers. 

The gallinaceous family is totally different from that in the 
Indian forests ; the guan or penelope, related to the phieasant, 
and the tiuamous, something of the grouse kind, supply 
their place, together with various alectors, which run after 
lizards and snakes on the plains, or feed on insects on the 
banks of rivers. Some of them have a horny substance on 



332 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the wings for striking their prey : the most peculiar of these 
alectors are the agami or trumpet bird, the kamichi, and the 
caziama, of Brazil. No country can be compared with South 
America for the number of original forms of birds, far beyond 
even being mentioned in a book not entirely devoted to 
natural history. 

The ostrich with three toes, or struthia rhea, ranges, like 
all its congeners, over a wide extent of country. It is eVery- 
w^here from the Silvas to the Rio Negro, which bounds the 
Pampas of Buenos Ayres ; while the struthia Darwinii has 
the plains of Patagonia to the Straits of Magellan for its resi- 
dence. 

The water-fowl and. waders in this land flf rivers are be- 
yond nifmber ; millions of flamingoes, spatules, cormorants, 
herons, fishing-falcons, and rynchops, follow the fish that go 
up the rivers to spawn ; nor are gulls wanting where fish 
are to be found : a little snow-white heron walks on the 
back and over the head of the crocodile while it sleeps.. 
The water-fowl are almost all peculiar ; the few that are ex- 
cepted are North American.. Eight or nine genera belong- 
ing to the- warm climates of the old world, are here under 
new forms, and the number of specific forms of the same 
genus is greater than in any other country. The tantalus 
ruber inhabits Cayenne ; the ardea helias and scalopax are 
the most peculiar of the herons. 

Ducks migrate in irkmense flocks,- alternately between the 
Orinoco and the Amazons, on account of the greater supply 
of fish afforded by the floods of these rivers, which take 
place at intervals of six months from each other. Between 
the tropics the vicissitudes of drought and humidity have 
much influence on the migration of birds, because the supply 
of their food depends upon these changes. 

If any thing more were required to show the partial loca- 
tion of birds, the~Galapagos Archipelago might be men- 
tioned : of 26 specimens shot by Mr. Darwin, 25 were pecu- 
liar, though bearing a strong resemblance to American types ; 
some birds were even confined to particular islands ; and 
the gulls, one of the most widely dispersed families, are 
peculiar. But on this comparatively recent volcanic group, 
only 500 miles distant from the coast of America, every thing 
is peculiar, birds, plants, reptiles, and fish, and though under 
the equator, all have sober covering. 



ANTARCTIC SEA BIRDS. 333 

The coasts of Peru and northern Chili are not rich in 
birds, but in southern Chili there are many humming-birds, 
parrots, giant storks, flamingoes, peculiar ducks and geese ; 
and there begins that inconceivable quantity of sea-fowl that 
swarm on the seas and coasts of the Antarctic regions. The 
black rayador, or rbynchops nigra, has been seen in a dense 
mass seven miles long; shags fly in an unbroken line two 
miles long. Pelicans, sea-ravens, gulls, petrels, and many 
others cover the low islands and coasts of the mainland, and 
those of Tierra del Fuego. 

In the Antarctic seas petrels take place of our gulls ; 
seven species of them inhabit these high southern latitudes 
in prodigious numbers. A flock of what was supposed to 
be the young of the kind known as the Cape pigeon, was 
estimated to have been from six to ten miles long, and two 
or three miles broad, which absolutely darkened the air 
during the two or three hours they were flying over the dis- 
covery ships. The white petrel, a most elegant bird, never 
leaves the ice, and consequently is never seen north .of the 
Antarctic circle in summer. Three species of penguin 
inhabit these seas; the largest, which is a rare and, for the 
most part, solitary bird, lives on the pack-ice, and weighs 
from 60 to 70 pounds. The other two species are smaller 
and gregarious; they crowd the snow-clad islands in the 
high southern latitudes in myriads : every ledge of rock 
swarms with them, and on the shore of Possession Island, 
close to Victoria Land, it was difficult to pass through the 
multitudes. They are fine, bold birds, pecking and snap- 
ping with their sharp bills, at those who venture among them. 
They can scarcely walk, and cannot fly, but they skim along 
the snow, and swim rapidly, even under water, and the 
noise they make baffles all description. Two species of alba- 
tross breed in the Antarctic Islands; a kind of skua gull, 
which robs their nests ; and a goose which, like the eider- 
duck, makes its nest with, the down from its breast. Few 
land-birds are met with within the Antarctic circle : there 
are but seven or eight species in the Auckland Islands, 
mostly New Zealand birds ; among others, the tooa or tui, 
and an olive-coloured creeper, the choristers of the woods. 
One only was found in Campbell Island. 

Many generic forms are the same at the two extremities of 
the globe, yet with distinct specific differences. Sea-fowls 



334 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

are more excursiye than other birds, but even they confine 
themselv'es within definite limits, so that the coasts may be 
known from their winged inhabitants. 



AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 

The Australian birds are in many respects as singular as 
the quadrupeds and plants of that country : a white falcon 
is among its birds of prey, a black swan among its water- 
fowl, and of 45 genera, 35 are purely Australian. The pas- 
seres are so original, that many newgenera have been found. 
The cassican, a handsome" bird of bright colours, approach- 
ing somewhat to thecrow family, the choucalcyon, the golden 
and black oriole, and one species of phelidon, are peculiar 
Australian. The menura superba, or lyre-bird, from the re- 
semblance its out-spread tail bears to the ancient lyre, is the 
only bird of its genus, and the only one which approaches 
the character of the. gallinaceous family, of which none have 
been discovered in the Australian continent. Here are 
many specific kinds of cuckoos^. as the coucals arrtl the scy- 
throps, the only bird of its genus. Woodpeckers there are 
none. The parrots, paroquets, and cockatoos, which live in 
numerous societies, all are peculiar, especially the black cock- 
atoo, which is found here only ; itis^not so gregarious, bat 
evpn more suspicious than the white cocka^:oos, which have a 
sentinel to warn, them of danger. Chio,as, with iiuge bills 
like the toucan, satin-birds, pigeons and doves of original 
forms, abound ; and the cereops. goose is no less peculiar 
among the web-fooied tribe. The desert plains of this great 
continent are allotted to the emu, a large strutiiia, like its 
congener the ostrich, incapable of flight, and once very plen- 
tiful, but now in progress of. being extirpatad or driven by 
the cojonists to the unexplored regions of the interior. 

The apteryx, a bird of the same family, still lingers in 
New Zealand, but it is on the verge of extinction, and pro- 
bably owes its existence to its nocturnal and burrowing 
habits. It is one of those anomalous creatures that partakes 
of the character of several others ; its heaxi is in some degree 
like that of the ibis, with a long slender bill, fitted for dig- 
ging into the ground for worms and grubs; its legs and feet 
resemble those of the common fowl, with a fourth toe or spur 



BIRDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 335 

behind, in which it differs from its congeners; and its 
wings, if wings they can be called, are exceedingly small. 
In a specimen, whose body measured 19 inches, the wings, 
stripped of the feathers, were only ah inch and a half long, 
ending in a ha,rd horny claw three inches long. The compara- 
tively small wings are characteristic of the whole family : 
the rhea and ostrich have the largest, which, though unavail- 
ing in flight, materially aid their progress in running ; the 
wings of the emu and apteryx serve only as weapons of de- 
fence : the whole tribe also defend themselves by l<icking. 
No animals have a more remarkable geographical distribu- 
tion than this family, or show more distinctly the decided 
limits within which animals hare originally been placed. 
These huge birds can neither fly nor swim, consequently 
they could not have passed through the air or the ocean to 
distant continents and islands. There are five distinct 
genera, to each of which very extensive and widely sepa- 
rated countries have been allotted : the ostrich is spread 
over Africa, from the Cape of Good Hope to the deserts of 
Arabia ; two species of the rhea range over the plains of the 
Pampas and Patagonia, in South America ; the continent of 
Australia is the abode of the emu ; the cassowary roves over 
some of the large islands of the Indian Archipelago ; and 
the apteryx dwells in NewZealand^. The dodo, a very large 
bird of the struthia kind, extirpated by the Dutch navigators, 
once inhabited Mauritius and the adjacent island of Don 
Rodriguez. The deinornis giganteus, a bird iO feet; high, 
has been recently extinguished in New Zealand, if there be 
not still some lingering in the unexplored part of that wide 
country, the only one that has contained two genera of this 
family of birds. Bones, not fossilized, but in- the natural 
state, have been found of six species of this extraordinary 
bird, and brought to England ; and a complete skeleton of 
the deinornis giganteus has been arranged by Professor 
Owen, the distinguished comparative anatomist, to whom 
we are indebted for a very interesting account of it. A 
small portion of a large bone was examined by htm, and the 
result was one of those triumphs of science which ■ charac- 
terize genius : he boldly pronounced it to be the bone of a 
bird — of the ostrich kind, and his decision has since been 
abundantly confirmed by the subsequent discovery of the 
bones and part of the egg of the bird. 



336 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

The struthia family live on vegetables ; the form of those 
that had their home in New Zealand shows that they had fed 
on the edible roots of the fern which covers that country ; 
and as no quadruped excepting a rat is indigenous in New 
Zealand, though 700 miles long, and in many places 90 wide, 
these birds could have had no enemy but man, the most for- 
midable of all. 

The beautiful and sprightly tui, or parson bird, native in 
New Zealand, is jet black, with a v,'hite tuft on its breast, 
and so imitative that it can be taught to repeat whole sen- 
tences. There are parrots and paroquets, vast numbers of 
pigeons, fine warblers, many small birds, and a great variety of 
water-fowl, amongst others a cormorant, which, though web- 
footed, perches on the trees that overhang the streams and 
sea, watching for fish ; and a snow-white frigate-bird, that 
pounces on them from a great height in the air. Altogether 
there are at least 84 species of birds that inhabit these islands. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALIA THROUGHOUT THE EARTH. • 

Carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, contain the elements 
necessary for the support of animals, as well as of vegetables. 
They are supplied to the graminivora in the vegetable food 
which is converted into animal substance by their vital func- 
tions. 

Vitality in animals, as in vegetables, is the power they 
have of assimilating their food, a process independent of vo- 
lition, since it is Carried on during sleep, and is the cause of 
force. Animals inhale oxygen with the air they breathe ; 
part of the oxygen combines wnth the carbon contained in 
the food, and is exhaled in the form of carbonic acid gas. 
With every effort, with every breath, and with every motion, 
voluntary or involuntary, at every instant of life, a part of 
the muscular substance becomes dead, separates from the 
living part, combines with the remaining portion of inhaled 
oxygen, and is removed. Food, therefore, is necessary to 
compensate for the waste, to supply nourishment, and to re- 



CHEMISTRY OF ANIMAL LIFE. 337 

store strength to the nerves, on which all vital motion de- 
pends ; for by the nerves volition acts on living matter. 
Food would not be sufficient to make up for this waste, and 
consequent loss of strength, without sleep ; during which 
voluntary motion ceases, and the undisturbed assimilation of 
the food suffices to restore strength, and to make up for the 
involuntary motion of breathing, which is also a source of 
waste. 

The perpetual combination of the oxygen of the atmo- 
sphere with the carbon of the food, and with the effete sub- 
stance of the body, is a real combustion, and is supposed to 
be the cause of animal heat, because heat is constantly given 
out by the combination of carbon and oxygen; and, without 
a constant supply of food, the oxygen would soon consume 
the whole animal, except the bones. 

Graminivorous animals inhale oxygen in breathing, they 
also take it in by the pores of the skin ; and as vegetable food 
does. not contain so much carbon as animal food, they require 
a greater supply to compensate for the wasting influence of 
the oxygen ; therefore, cattle are constantly eating. But the 
nutritious parts of vegetables are identical in composition 
with the chief constituents of the blood ; and from blood 
every part of the animal body, and even a portion of the 
bones, is formed. - 

Carnivorous animals haVe not pores in the skin, therefore 
their supply of oxygen is from their breath only ; and, as 
animal food contains a greater quantity of carbon, they do 
not require to eat so often as animals that feed on vegetables. 
The restlessness of carnivorous animals, when confined in a 
cage, is owing to the superabundance of carbon in their food. 
They move about continually to quicken respiration, and by 
that means procure a supply of oxygen to carry off the redun- 
dant carbon. 

The quantity of animal heat is in proportion to the amount 
of the oxygen inspired in equal times. The heat of birds is 
greater than that of quadrupeds, and in both it'is higher than 
the temperature of amphibious animals, and fishes, which 
have the coldest blood. ' On these subjects we are indebted 
to Professor Liebig, who has thrown so much light on the 
important sciences of animal and vegetable chemistry. 

The mammalia consist of nine orders of animals, which 
differ in appearance and in their nature ; but they agree in 
29 



338 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the one attribute of suckling their young. These orders are 
— ^the quadrumana, animals with four hands, as monkeys and 
apes ; cheiroptera, animals with winged hands, as bats; car- 
nivora, that live on animal food, as the lion and tiger; ro- 
dentia, or gnawers, as beavers, squirrels, mice ; edentata, or 
toothless animals, as ant-eaters and armadilloes ; pachyder- 
mata, or thick-skinned animals, as the elephant, the horse ; 
ruminantia, animals that chew the cud, as cows, sheep, deer ; 
cetacese, as whales, dolphins, and phocae. 

The distribution of animals is guided by laws analogous 
to those which regulate the distribution of plants, insects, 
fishes, and birds. Each continent, and even diflferent parts 
of the same continent, are centres of zoological families, which 
have always existed there, and nowhere else ; each group 
being almost always specifically different from all others. 

Food, security, and temperature have no influence, as pri- 
mary causes, in the distribution of animals. The plains of 
America are not less fit for rearing oxen than the meadows 
of Europe ; yet the common ox was not found in that conti- 
nent at the time of its discovery ; and, with regard to tempe- 
rature, this animal thrives on the llanos of Venezuela and the 
pampas of Brazil as well as on the steppes in Europe. The 
horse is another example : originally a native of the deserts 
of Tartary, he how roams wild in herds of hundreds of thou- 
sands on the grassy plains of America, though unknown in 
that continent at the time of the Spanish invasion. The sta- 
tions which the different families now occupy must have be^n 
allotted to them as each part of the land rose above the 
ocean ; and because they have found in these stations all 
that was necessary for their existence, many have never wan- 
dered from thern, notwithstanding their powers of locomo- 
tion ; while others have migrated, but only within certain 
bounds. 

The Arctic regions form a district common to Europe, 
Asia, and America. On this account, the animals inhabiting 
the northern parts of these continents are sometimes identical, 
often very similar ; in fact, there is no genus of quadrupeds 
in the Arctic regions that is not found in the three continents, 
though there are only 27 species common to all, and these 
are mostly fur-bearing animals. In the temperate zone of 
Europe and Asia, which forms an uninterrupted region, iden- 
tity of species is occasionally met with ; but for the most part. 



EUROPEAN ANIMALS. 339 

marked by such varieties in size and colour as might be ex- 
pected to arise from difference of food and climate. The 
same genera are sometimes found in the intertropical parts 
of Asia, Africa, and America, but the same species never ; 
much less in the south temperate zones of these continents, 
where all the animals are different, whether birds, beasts, in- 
sects, or reptiles ; but in similar climates analogous tribes 
replace one another. 

Europe has no family and no order peculiarly its own, and 
many of its species are common to other countries ; conse- 
quently the great zoological districts, where the subject is 
viewed on a broad scale, are Asia, Africa, Oceanica, Ame- 
rica, and Australia ; but in each of these there are smaller 
districts, to which particular genera and families are confined. 
Yet when the regions are not separated by lofty mountain- 
chains, acting as barriers, the races are in most cases blended 
together on the confines between the two districts, so that 
there is not a sudden change. ■ 



EUROPEAN ANIMALS. 

The character of the animals of temperate Europe has been 
more changed by the progress of civilization than that of any 
other quarter of the globe. Many of its original inhabitants 
have been extirpated, and new races introduced ; but it seems 
always to have had various animals capable of being domes- 
ticated. The wild cattle in the parks of the Duke of Hamil- 
ton and the Earl of Tankerville are the only remnants of the 
ancient inhabitants of the British forests, though they were 
spread over Europe, and perhaps were the parent stock from 
which the European cattle of the present tirpe have de- 
scended; though the bison, or euroch, a race nearly extinct, 
and found only in the forests of Lithuania and the Caucasus, 
may have some claim to the pedigree. Both races are sup- 
posed to have come from Asia. The musmon, which exists 
in Corsica and Sardinia, is said to be the origin from which 
our sheep sprung. The pig, the goat, the fallow-deer, and 
red-deer, have been reclaimed, and also the reindeer, which 
cannot strictly be called European, since it also inhabits the 
northern regions of Asia and America. The cat is Euro- 
pean ; and altogether eight or ten species of tamed quadru- 
peds have sprung from native animals. 



340 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

There are still about 180 wild land-animals in Europe: 
45 of these are also found in western Asia, and nine in 
northern Africa. The most remarkable are the reindeer, 
elk, red and tallow deer, the roe-buck, glutton, lynx, polecat, 
several wild-cats, the common and black squirrels, the fox, 
wild boar, wolf, the black and the brown bear, eight species 
of weazels, and seven of mice. The otter is common ; but 
the beaver is now found only on the Rhine, the Rhone, the 
Danube, and some other large rivers ; rabbits and hares are 
numerous ; the hedgehog is everywhere ; the porcupine in 
southern Europe only ; the chamois, yzard, and ibex in the 
Alps and Pyrenees. Many species of these animals are 
widely distributed over Europe, generally with variations in 
size and colour. The chamois of the A1p5 and Pyrenees, 
though the same in species, is slightly varied in appear- 
ance ; and the fox of the most northern parts of Europe is 
larger than that in Italy, with a richer fur, and somewhat 
different colour. 

Some European animals are much circumscribed in their 
locality. The ichneumon is peculiar to Spain ; a peculiar 
species of stag and the musmon are confined to Corsica and 
Sardinia ; there are a weazel and bat which inhabit Sardinia 
only ; and Sicily has several peculiar species of bats and 
mice. There is only one species of monkey in Europe, 
which lives on the rock of Gibraltar, and is supposed to 
have been brought from Africa. All the indigenous British 
quadrupeds now existing, together with the hyaena, tiger, 
bear, and wolf, whose bones have been found in caverns, 
came from Germany before England was cut off from the 
continent by the British Channel ; but the greater number 
have perished. Ireland was separated by the Irish Channel 
before all th« animals had migrated across England ; so that 
our squirrel, mole, polecat, dormouse, and many smaller 
quadrupeds, never reached the sister island. 



ASIATIC ANIMALS. 

Asia has a greater number and a greater variety of wild 
animals than any country, except America, and also a larger 
proportion of those that are domesticated. Though civilized 
from the earliest agf s, the destruction of the animal creation 



ASIATIC ANIMALS.' 341 

has not been so great as in Europe, owing to the inacessible 
height of the mountains, the extent of the plains and deserts, 
and, not least, to the impenetrable forests and jungles, v/hich 
afford them a safe retreat : 288 mammalia are Asiatic, of 
which 186 are common to it and other countries ; these, 
however, chiefly belong to the temperate zone. 

Asia Minor is a district of transition from the fauna of 
Europe to that of Asia. There the chamois, the bou- 
quetin, the brown bear, the wolf, fox, hare, and others, are 
mingled with the hysena, the angora goat, which bears a 
valuable fleece, the argali or wild sheep, the white squirrel, 
peculiar deer ; and even the Bengal royal tiger is sometimes 
on Mount Ararat, and is not uncommon in Azerbijan and 
the mountains in Persia. 

Arabia is inhabited by the hysena, panther, jackal, wolf, 
and musk-deer. Antelopes and monkeys are found in Yemen 
and Aden. Most of these are also indigenous in Persia. 
The wild ass, a handsome, spirited animal of great speed, 
and so shy that it is scarcely possible to come near it, wan- 
ders in herds over the deserts in both countries. It is also 
indigenous in the Indian desert, and especially in the 
Run of Cutch : " the wilderness and the barren lands are 
his dwelling." , , _, - . 

The table-lands and mountains which divide eastern Asia 
almost into polar and tropical zones, produce as great a dis- 
tinction in, the character of its indigenous fauna. The 
severity of the climate in Siberia renders the skins of its 
numerous fur-bearing animals more valuable. These are 
reindeer, elks, wolves, the large white bear, that lives among 
the ice on the Arctic shores, several other bears, the lynx, 
various kinds of martens and cats, the common, the blue, 
and the black fox, the ermine, and sable. The fur of these 
last is much esteemed, and is inferior only to that of the 
sea-otter, which inhabits the shores on both sides of the 
Northern Pacific. 

With the exception of the jerboa, which burrows in sandy 
deserts, on the table-land and elsewhere^ all the Asiatic 
species of gnawers are confined to Siberia. The most re- 
markable of these is the flying squirrel. The Altai Moun- 
tains teem with wild animals, besides many of those men- 
tioned. There are large stags, sloths, some peculiar weazels, 
the argali, and the musmon, or wild sheep, the same with 
29* 



342 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

that in Sardinia. The wild goat of the Alps is found in the 
Sayansk part of the chain ; the glutton and musk-goat in the 
Baikal ; and in Da-Ouria the red-deer and a peculiar ante- 
lope. The Bengal tiger and the felis-irbis, a species of 
panther, wander from the Celestial Mountains to the Altai 
chain and southern Siberia ; and the tiger is met with even 
on the banks of the Obi, and also in China, though in the 
northern regions it differs considerably from the same species 
in Bengal, The tapir, and many of the animals of the 
Indian Archipelago, are in the southern provinces of the 
Chinese empire ; but its fauna is little known. It is, how- 
ever, probable that in the northern parts it resembles that of 
the Altai Mountains and Siberia. The animals of Japan have 
a strong analogy to those of Europe : many are identical, or 
slightly varied, as the badger, otter, mole, common fox, 
marten, and squirrel. On the other hand, a large species of 
bear in the island of Jezo is analogous to the grizzly bear in 
the rocky mountains of North America. A chamois in other 
parts of Japan is similar to the chamois montana of the same 
mountains ; and other animals native in Japan are the same 
with those in Sumatra ; so that its fauna is connected with 
that of very distant regions. r 

A few animals are peculiar to the' high cold plains of the 
table-land of eastern Asia: the dzigguetai, a very fleet 
animal, resembling both the horse and the ass, is peculiar 
to these Tartarian steppes ; two species of antelopes inhabit 
the plains of Tibet, congregating in immense herds, with 
sentinels so vigilant that it is scarcely possible to approach 
them. Thedzeran,oryellowgoat, which is both swift and shy, 
and the handsome Tartar ox, are native in these wilds ; also 
the shawl-wool goat and the manul, from which the Angora 
cat, so much admired in Persia and Europe, is descended. 

The ruminating animals of Asia are more numerous and 
more excellent than those of any other part of the world ; 
64 species are native, and 46 of these exist there only; 
There are several species of wild oxen ; one in the Burmese 
empire, and on the mountains of north-eastern India, with 
spiral twisted horns. The buffaloes native in China, India, 
Borneo, and the Sunda Islands ; it is a large animal, for- 
midable in a wild state, but domesticated universally in the 
East. It was introduced into Italy in the sixth century, 
and large herds now graze in the low marshy plains near 
the sea. 



ASIATIC ANIMALS. 343 

Various kinds of oxen have been domesticated in India 
time immemorial : the handsome Indian ox, with a hump 
on the shoulder, has been venerated by the Bramins for 
ages; the beautiful white silky tail of the domesticated 
Tartar ox, used in the East to drive away flies, was adopted 
as the Turkish standard ; and the common Indian ox differs 
from all others in having great speed. Some other species 
of cattle have been tamed, and some are still wild in India, 
Java, and other Asiatic Islands, The Cashmere goat, which 
bears the shawl wool, is the most valuable of the endless 
varieties of goats and sheep of Asia ; it is kept in large herds 
on the central table-land, on the northern declivities of the 
Himalaya, and in^ the upper regions of Bhotan, where the 
cold climate is congenial to it. 

Twelve species of antelope and 20 of deer are peculiar to 
Asia, of which the musk-deer of the Himalaya is one ; two 
species of antelopes have been mentioned as peculiar to the 
table-land, others are distributed in the islands. 

Asia possesses eight native species of thick-skinned ani- 
mals, including the elephant, horse, ass, camel, and drome- 
dary, which have been domesticated from the time of the 
earliest scriptural records. The horse and camel are sup- 
posed to have existed wild in the plains of Central Asia, 
and the dromedary in Arabia ; though now they are only 
known as domestic animals. The Arabian and Persian 
horses have acknowledged excellence and beauty, and from 
these our best European horses are descended ; the African 
horse, which was taken to Spain by the Moors, is probably 
of the same race. - 

The elephant has long been a domestic animal in Asia, 
though it still roams wild in formidable herds through the 
forests and jungles at the foot of the Himalaya, in other 
parts of India, the Indo-Chinese peninsula, and the islands 
of Sumatra and Ceylon, where it seems to be of a different 
species from those that are tame ; the hunting elephant is 
esteemed the most noble. A rhinoceros with one horn is 
native on the continent. 

There are 60 genera of Asiatic carnivorous animals, of 
which the royal tiger is the handsomest and the most for- 
midable, its favourite habitation is in the jungles of Hindos- 
tan, though it wanders nearly to the limit of perpetual snow 
in the Himalaya, to the Persian and Armeniafi' mountains, to 



344 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Siberia and China. Leopards and panthers are common, and 
there is a maneless lion in Guzerat : the chitta, used in hunt- 
ing, is the only one of the tigers capable of being tamed. 
The hysena is found everywhere, excepting the Birman em-^ 
pire, in which there are neither wolves, hyaenas, foxes, nor 
jackals. There are four species of carnivorous bears in 
India ; that of Nepaul has valuable fur : the wild boar, hog, 
and dogs of endless variety, abound. 

Toothless animals have only two representatives in India ; 
which, however, differ from all others except the African, in 
being covered with imbricated scales, which they can erect 
at pleasure. 

The Indian Archipelago and the Indo-Chinese peninsula 
form a zoological province of a very peculiar nature, being 
allied to the faunas of India, Australia, and South America, 
yet having animals exclusively its own. Some groups of 
the islands have several animals in common, either identi- 
cal, or with slight variations, that are altogether wanting in 
other islands, which, in their turn, have creatures of their 
own. Many species are common to the Archipelago and 
the neighbouring parts of the continent, or even to China, 
Bengal, Hindostan, and Ceylon. Flying quadrupeds are a 
distinguishing feature of. this archipelago, though they do 
not absolutely fly, but, by an extension of the skin of their 
sides to their legs, they take long leaps. Nocturnal flying 
squirrels, of several species, are common to the Malayan 
peninsula and the Sunda Islands, especially Java : and three 
species of flying lemurs inhabit Sunda, Malacca, and the 
Peiew Islands. Besides these, there are the frugivorous 
bats, which really fly, and differ from bats in other countries 
in living upon vegetable food. 

A hundred and eighty species of the ape and monkey 
tribe are entirely Asiatic : monkeys are found only on the 
coast of India, Cochin-China, and the Sunda Islands; the 
long-armed apes or gibbons are in the Sunda Islands and 
the Malayan peninsula ; and the pongos or orang-outang are 
natives of Sumatra and Borneo. The simayang, a very 
large ape of Sumatra and Bencoolen, goes in large troops, 
following a leader, and makes a howling noise at sunrise and 
sunset that is heard miles oflT. Sumatra and Borneo are the 
peculiar abode of the orang-outang, which in the Malay lan- 
guage means the " man of the woods," and of all its kind, ex- 



ANIMALS OF INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 345 

cept perhaps the chimpanzee of Africa and the kahau of the 
Malayan peninsula, approaches nearest to man. It has never 
spread over the islands it inhabits, though there seems to be 
nothing to prevent it, but it finds all that is necessary within 
a limited district. The orang-outang and the long-armed 
apes have extraordinary muscular strength, and svi^ing from 
tree to tree by their arms. ■ • ■ 

The Malays have given the name of oraiig or man to the 
whole tribe, on account of their intelligence as well as their 
form. 

A two-horned rhinoceros is peculiar to Java, of a diffe- 
rent species from the African, also the felis macrocelis, and 
a very large bear ; there are only two species of squirrels in 
Java, which is remarkable, as the Sunda Islands are rich in 
them. The royal tiger of India and the elephant are found 
only in Sumatra, and the babi-roussa or hog-deer lives in 
Borneo ; but these two islands have many quadrupeds in 
common, as a leopard, the one-horned rhinoceros, the black 
antelope, some graceful miniature creatures of the deer kind, 
the tapir bicolor, also found in Malacca and India, besides a 
wild boar, an inhabitant of all the marshy forests from Bor- 
neo to New Guinea. In the larger islands deer abound, 
from the size of a rabbit to that of the elk. 

The anoa, a ruminating animal about the size of a sheep, 
and in appearance something between the buffalo and ante- 
lope, shy and fierce, goes in herds in the mountains of Ce- 
lebes, where many forms of animals strangers to the Sunda 
Islands begin to appear, as some sorts of phalangers, or 
pouched quadrupeds. These new forms become more nume- 
rous in the Moluccas, which are inhabited by flying phalan- 
gers and other pouched animals, with scaly tails. In New 
Guinea there are kangaroos, the spotted phalanger, the 
pelandoe, the New Guinea hog, and the Papua dog, said to 
be the origin of all the native dogs in Australia and Oce- 
anica, wild or tame. 

, The fauna of the Philippine Islands is analogous to that 
in the Sunda Islands. They have several quadrupeds in 
common with India and Ceylon, but there are others which 
probably are not found in these localities. 



346 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



AFRICAN QUADRUPEDS. 

The opposite extremes of aridity and moisture in the Afri- 
can continent have had great influence in the nature and 
distribution of its animals ; and since by far the greater part 
consists of plains utterly barren or covered by temporary ver- 
dure, and watered by inconstant streams that flow only a few 
months in the year, fleet animals, fitted to live on arid plains, 
are far more abundant than those that require rich vegeta- 
tion and much water. The latter are chiefly confined to the 
intertropical coasts, and especially to the large jungles and 
deep forests at the northern declivity of the table-land, where 
several genera and many species exist that are Aot found 
elsewhere. Africa has a fauna in many respects insulated 
from that of every other part of the globe ; for although 
about 100 of its quadrupeds are common to other countries, 
there are 250 species its own. Several of these animals, 
especially the larger kinds, are distributed over the whole 
table-land from the Cape of Good Hope to the highlands of 
Abyssinia and Senegambia without the smallest variety, and 
many are slightly modified in colour and size. -Ruminating 
animals are very numerous, though few have been domesti- 
cated : of these the ox of Abyssinia and Bornou is remarka- 
ble from the extraordinary size of its horns, which are some- 
times two feet in circumference at the root ; and the Galla 
ox of Abyssinia has horns four feet long. There are many 
African species of buffaloes : that at the Cape of Good Hope 
is a large, fierce animal, wandering in herds in every part of 
the country, even to Abyssinia: the flesh of the whole race 
is tainted with the odour of musk. The African sheep and 
goats, of which there are many varieties, differ from those of 
other countries ; the wool of all is coarse, except that of the 
Merino sheep, said to have been introduced into Spain by 
the Moors from Morocco. 

No country has produced a ruminating animal similar, or 
even analogous, to the giraffe, or camelopard, which ranges 
widely over South Africa from the northern banks of the 
Gareep, or Orange River, to the. Great Desert. It is a gen- 
tle, timid animal, which has been seen in troops of 100. 
The earliest record we have of it is, that it graced the tri- 
umph of a Roman emperor. 



AFRICAN QUADRUPEDS. 347 

Africa may truly be said to be the land of the antelope, 
which is found in every part of it, though chiefly on the 
table-land. Diiferent species have their peculiar localities, 
while others are widely dispersed, sometimes with and some- 
times without any sensible variety of size or colour. The 
greater number are inhabitants of the plains, while a few 
affect the forests. Sixty species have been described, of 
which at least 26 are found at the Cape of Good Hope and 
in the adjacent countries. They are of every size, from the 
pigmy antelope not larger than a hare, to the eland, which 
is larger than a calf. Timidity is the universal character of 
the race. Many are gregarious ; and the number in a herd 
is far too great even to guess at. Like all animals that feed 
in groups, they have sentinels ; and they are the easy prey 
of so many carnivorous animals, that their safety requires the 
precaution. At the head of their enemies is the lion, who 
lurks among the tall reeds at the fountain, to seize them when 
they come to' drink. They are graceful in their motions, 
especially the spring-buck, which goes in a compact troop ; 
and in their march there is constantly some One which gathers 
its slender limbs together and bounds into the air. 

Africa has only two species of deer, both belonging to the 
Atlas: one is the common fallow-deer of Europe. 

The 38 species of rodentia, or gnawing quadrupeds, of 
this continent, live on the plains; and the greater part of them 
are leaping animals, as the gerboa capensis. Squirrels are 
rare, and all terrestrial. 

There are five species of the horse kind in South Africa; 
of these the gaily-striped zebra, and the more sober-coloured 
quagga, of several species, wander in troops over the plains, 
often in company with ostriches. An alliance between crea- 
tures differing in nature and habits is not easily accounted 
for. The two-horned rhinoceros of Africa is different from 
that of Asia: there are certainly three, and probably five, 
species of these huge animals peculiar to the table-land. Dr. 
Smith saw 150 in one day near the 24th parallel of south 
latitude. The hippopotamus is exclusively African: multi- 
tudes inhabit the lakes and rivers in the intertropical and 
southern parts of the continent, and never change their abode. 
Elephants, differing in species from those in Asia, are so nu- 
merous, that 200 have been seen in a herd near Lake Chad. 
They are not now domesticated in Africa, and are hunted by 



348 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

the natives for their tusks. A wild hog and the hyrax are 
among the thick-skinned quadrupeds of this country. The 
monkey tribe is found in all the hot parts of Africa : peculiar 
genera are allotted to particular districts. The family of gue- 
nons is found in no part of the world but the Cape of Good 
Hope, the coasts of Loango and Guinea; the mandrills are 
peculiar to Guinea ; and of the cynocephalus, or blue-headed 
ape, one species inhabits Guinea, others the southern part of 
the table-land, and one is met with everywhere from Senaar 
to Cafraria. A very remarkable long-eared kind is found in 
Abyssinia ; the margot is in North Africa, and the chimpan- 
zee inhabits the forests of South Africa from Cape Negro to 
the Gambia. Living in society like all apes and monkeys, 
which are eminently sociable, it is easily tamed, and very in- 
telligent. Baron Humboldt observes that all apes resembling 
man have an expression of madness; that their gaiety dimi- 
nishes as their intelligence increases. 

Africa possesses the cat tribe in great variety and beauty; 
lions, leopards, and panthers are numerous throughout the 
continent; servals and viverrine cats are in the torrid dis- 
tricts ; and the lion of the Atlas is said to be the );nost formi- 
dable of all. In no country are foxes so abundant. Varioits 
species inhabit Nubia, Abyssinia, and the Cape of Good 
Hope. The corsac is peculiar to the Cape. The long-eared 
fox, the famel of Kordofan, and some others, are found in 
Africa only. There are also various species of dogs, the 
hyaena, and the jackal. 

Two species of toothless animals are African — the long- 
tailed manis, and the aard-vark, or earth-hog ; both are 
covered with scales: they burrow in the ground, and feed 
on ants. Great flocks of a large migratory vampire-bat fre- 
quent the slave-coast. Altogether there are 26 species of 
African bats. 

Multitudes of antelopes of various species, lions, leopards, 
panthers, hysenas, jackals, and some other carnivora, live in 
the oases of the great northern deserts ; gerboas and endless 
species of leaping gnawers, rats and mice, burrow in the 
ground. The dryness of the climate and soil keeps the coats 
of the animals clean and glossy ; and it has been observed 
that tawny and grey tints are the prevailing colours in the 
fauna of the North African deserts, not only in the birds and 
beasts, but in reptiles and insects. In consequence of the 



AMERICAN QUADRUPEDS. 349 

continuous desert soil from North Africa through Arabia to 
Persia and India, many analogous species of animals exist in 
those countries ; in some instances they are the same, or va- 
rieties of the same species, as antelopes, leopards, panthers, 
jackals, and hyaenas. 

The fauna on the eastern side of the great island of Mada- 
gascar is analogous to that of India ; on the western side it 
resembles that of Africa, though, as far as it is known, it 
seems to be a distinct centre of animal life. It has no rumi- 
nating animals ; and the monkey tribe is represented by the 
lemures, which are characteristic of this fauna. A frugivo- 
rous bat, the size of a common fowl, forms an article of food. 



AMERICAN QUADRUPEDS. 

No species of animal has yet been extirpated in America, 
which is the richest zoological province, possessing 537 spe- 
cies of mammalia, of which 480 are its own, yet no country 
has contributed so little to the stock of domestic animals. 
With the exception of the llama (alpaca guanaco) and vi- 
cugna, the turkey, and perhaps some sheep and dogs, Ame- 
rica has furnished no animal or bird serviceable to man, 
while it has received from Europe all its domestic animals 
and its civilized inhabitants. 

Arctic America possesses almost all the.valuable fur-bear- 
ing animals that are in Siberia ; and they were very plenti- 
ful till the unsparing destruction of them has driven those 
yet remaining to the high latitudes, where the hunters that 
follow them are exposed to great hardships. Nearly 6,000,- 
000 of skins were brought to England in one year. Of the 
large animals, the shaggy bison, the musk-ox, and the wapiti 
are peculiar. The musk-ox travels north to. Parry's Islands ; 
yet it never has been seen in Greenland or on the north-west 
coast of America. The range of the elk ends where the aspen 
and willow cease to grow. The rein-deer, living on lichens 
and mosses, wanders to the shores of the Polar Ocean : its 
southern limit in Europe is the Baltic, and in America the 
latitude of Quebec. The white bear, the largest and most 
formidable of his kind, inhabits the ice itself. The shaggy 
bison goes south to the Arkansas, and roams in herds of thou- 
30 



350 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

sands over the prairies of the Mississippi, and on both sides 
of the Rocky Mountains. A marten called the prairie-dog 
isiiniversal. 

There are at least eight species of American dogs, several 
of which are natives of the far north. The logapus, or isatis, 
native in Spitzbergen and Greenland, is found in all the* 
Atretic regions of America and Asia, and in some of the Ku- 
rile Islands. Dogs are employed to draw sledges in New- 
foundland and Canada; and the Esquimaux travel drawn 
by dogs as well as by rein-deer. The dogs are strong and 
docile. The Esquimaux dogs were mute, till they learned 
to bark from dogs in our discovery ships. 

There are 13 species of the ruminating genus in North 
America, including the bison, -the musk-ox of the Arctic re- 
gions, the big-horned sheep, and the goat of the Rocky 
Mountains ; but of the thick-skinned tribe, so useful to man, 
there are only some tapirs, and a creature allied to the hog. 
The horse, now roaming wild in innumerable herds over the 
plains of South America, was unknown there till the Spanish 
conquest. Some of the fur-bearing animals of the , north 
never .pass 65° N. lat., and the rest live in the pine-forests 
of Canada. The quadrupeds of the tenaperate- zone are also 
distributed in distinct groups: those of the state of New 
York, consisting of about 40 species, are diiferent from those 
of the Arctic regions,. and also from those of South Carolina 
and Georgia ; wlijle in Texas another assemblage of species 
prevails. Numerous species of gnawers are scattered over 
the northern continent, especially squirrels ; the grey squirrel 
is in thousands ; but the racoon, the coatimondi, and the 
kinkajou are all natives of the southern States. The opos- 
sum, a pouched animal of an order peculiarly Australian, is 
found in Virginia, and everywhere betw^een the great Cana- 
dian lakes and Paraguay ; and-two other animals of that order 
live in Mexico. There is a porcupine in the United States 
and Canadian forests which climbs trees. The bats are dif- 
ferent from those in Europe, and, excepting two, are very 
local. The grizzly bear of the Rocky Mountains is the largest 
and most ferocious of American bears. The prong-buck an- 
telope is everywhere in the western parts of the continent, 
from 53'' N. lat. to Mexico and California ; it is swifter than 
the fleetest horse, and migrates to the south in winter. " In 
California there are ounces, polecats, the fallow-deer, the 



ANIMALS OF SOUTH AMERICA. 351 

berenda (an animal peculiar to that country), and a deer of 
remarkable size and speed. 

The high land of Mexico forms a very decided line of di- 
vision between the fauna of North and that of South Ame- 
rica ; yet some North American animals are seen beyond it, 
particularly two of the bears, and one of the otters, which 
inhabits the continent from the icy ocean to beyond Brazil. 
On the other hand, the puma, jaguar, opossum, kinkajou, 
and peccari have crossed the barrier from South America to 
California and the United States. 

in the varied and extensive regions of South America 
there are several cenfres of a, peculiar fauna, according as 
the country is mountainous or level, covered with forest or 
grass, fertile or desert, but the mammalia are inferior in or- 
ganization and size to those of the old world. The largest, 
most powerful, and perfect animals of this class -are confined 
to the old continent. The South American quadrupeds are 
on a smaller scale, more feeble and more gentle; many of 
them, as the toothless group and the sloths, are of anomalous 
and less perfect structure than the rest of the animal crea- 
tion, but the fauna of South America is so local and so pecu- 
liar, that the species of five of the terrestrial orders, whic-h 
are indigenous there, are found nowhere else. 

The monkey tribe are in myriads in the forests of tropical 
America and Brazil, but they never go north of the Isthmus 
of Darien, nor farther south than the Rio de la Plata. They 
differ widely from those in the old world, bearing less re- 
semblance to the human race, but they are more gentle and 
lively, and, notwithstanding, their agility, are often a prey 
to the vulture and puma. Some have no thumb, others 
have a versable thumb on hands and feet, and the thousands 
of sapajous have propensile tails, by which they suspend 
themselves and swing from bough to bough. These inhabi- 
tants of the woods are very noisy, especially the argualis, a 
large ape, whose howling is heard a mile off. 

The forests are also inhabited by a family of the marsupial 
tribe, or animals with pouches, in which they carry their 
young ; they are analogous to those which form the distin- 
guishing feature of the Australian fauna, but of distinct 
genera and species. All the opossums and the yassacks of 
this family have thumbs on their hind feet, opposite to the 
toes, so that they can grasp ; they are moreover distinguished 



35.2 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

from the Australian family by a long prehensile tail, and by 
greater agility. The numerous tribe of sapajou monkeys, 
the ant-eaters, the kinkajou, and a species of porcupine, 
have also grasping tails, a property of many South American 
animals. 

Five genera and 20 species of the toothless quadrupeds 
are characteristic of this continent, and exclusively confined 
to South America ; they are the sloths, the ai, the. armadil- 
loes, ehlamyphores, and ant-eaters. The animals of these 
five genera have very different habits : the sloths, as their 
name implies, are the most inactive of animals ; while the 
armadillo, in its coat of mail, is in perpetual motion, and in 
speed can outrun a man. Several species of these animals 
are- nocturnal, and burrow in the earth in the Pampas, Chili, 
and other places. The ehlamyphores are also burrowing 
animals, peculiar to the province of Cuyo in La Plata, and 
they have the property of sitting upright. The ant-eater, 
larger than a Newfoundland dog, with shorter legs, defends 
itself against the jaguar with its powerful claws ;' it inhabits 
the swampy savannahs and damp forests from Colombia to 
Paraguay, and from the Atlantic to the foot of the Andes; 
its flesh, like that of some other American animals, has a 
flavour of musk. The little ant-eater has a prehensile tail, 
and lives on trees in -the tropical forests, feeding on the 
larvae of bees, wasps, honey, and ants ; another of similar 
habits lives in Brazil and Guiana. The cat tribe in South 
America, is beautiful and powerful: the puma, the lion of 
America, is found both in the mauntains and the plains, in 
great numbers ; so different are its habits in different places, 
that in Chili it is timid and flies from a dog; in Peru, it is 
bold, though it rarely attacks a man. The ounce, which 
inhabits the lower forests, kills Indians even near their huts. 
The jaguar, a large tiger, very abundant, is so ravenous that 
it has sprung upon Indians in a canoe ; it is one of the few 
South American animals that cross the Isthmus of Darien, 
being found in California, on the territory of the Mississippi, 
and has been seen in Canada. 

The vampire is a very large bat, much dreaded by the 
natives, because it enters their huts at night, and though it 
seldom attacks human beings, it wounds calves and small 
animals, which sometimes die from the loss of blood. The 
other three South American bats are harmless. 



RUMINANTS OF SOUTH AMERICA. 353 

The only ruminating animals in South America are the 
alpacas, vicugnas, llamas, and guanacos ; the three first are 
peculiar to the Andes, the fourth is also in the Pampas, and 
in all the southern temperate zone to Cape Horn ; it is 
characteristic of the plains of Patagonia, where it is in large 
herds, and is easily tamed ; to these may be added four spe- 
cies of deer. The gnawers of South America are peculiar 
and varied ; more than 40 species of mice are native. The 
agouti represents our hares on these deserts, and the bizcacha 
is a burrowing animal, frequent in the pampas of Buenos 
Ayres. There is only one species of squirrel in the vast 
forests of South America. The guinea-pig, peccari, and 
cavies are South American ; so is the beautiful chinchilla, 
the fur of which is so valuable. The only native dogs are 
a half-reclaimed breed, which the Indians have, and a dumb 
dog in Brazil. 

It is very remarkable that in a country which has the most 
luxuriant vegetation there should not be one species of hol- 
low-horned ruminants, as the ox, sheep, goat, or antelope ; 
and it is still more extraordinary that the existing animals of 
South America, which are so nearly allied to the extinct in- 
habitants of the same soil, should be so inferior in size not 
only to them, but even to the living quadrupeds of South 
Africa, which is comparatively a desert. The quantity of 
vegetation in Britain at any one time exceeds the quantity 
on any equal area in the interior of Africa, ten-fold, yet Mr. 
Darwin has computed that the weight of 10 of the largest 
South African quadrupeds is 24 times greater than that of 
the same number of quadrupeds of South America ; for in 
South America there is no animal the size of a cow, so that 
there is no relation between the bulk of the species and the 
vegetation of the countries they inhabit. 

The largest animals indigenous in the West Indian Islands 
are the agouti, the racoon, the houtias, a native of the 
forests of Cuba ; the didelphus carnivora and the kinkajou 
are common also to the continent ; the kinkajou is a solitary 
instance of a carnivorous animal with a prehensile tail. 
30* 



354 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



AUSTRALIAN QUADRUPEDS. 

Australia is not farther separated from the rest of the 
■world by geographical position than by its productions. Its 
animals are creatures by themselves, of an entirely unusual 
type; few in species, and still fewer individually, if the 
vast extent, of country be taken into consideration ; and 
there has not been one large animal discovered. There are 
only 53 species of land quadrupeds in New Holland, and 
there is not a single example of the ruminating or thick- 
skinned animals, so useful to man-, among them ; there are 
no native horses, oxen, or sheep, yet all these thrive and 
multiply on the grassy steppes of the country, which seem to 
be so well suited to them. There are none of the monkey 
tribe, indeed they could not exist in a country where there 
is no fruit. 

Of the 52 species of indigenous quadrupeds, 40 are found 
nowhere else, and 43 are marsupial or pouched animals, 
distinguished from all others by their young being nourished 
in the pouch till they are mature. Though all the members 
of this numerous family agree in this circumstance, they are 
dissimilar in appearance^ internal structure, in their teeth 
and feet, consequently in their habits ; two genera live on 
vegetable food, one set are gnawers and another toothless. 
The kangaroo and the kangaroo-rat walk on their hind legs, 
and go by bounds, aided by their strong tail ; the rat holds 
its food in its hands like the squirrel ; the"" opossum walks 
on all fours ; the phalangers live on trees, and s\ving by their 
bushy tail, some burrow in the sand ; the flying opossum or 
phalanger, peculiarly an Australian animal, lives on th^ 
leaves of the gum-tree ; by expanding the skin of its sides it 
supports itself in the air in its. leaps from bough to bough. 
Several of the genera come out at night only, a characteristic 
of many Australian animals. 

The pouched tribe vary in size from that of a large dog to a 
- mouse ; the kangaroos, which are the largest, are easily- 
domesticated, and are used for food by the natives. Some 
go in large herds in the mountains, others live in the plains ; 
however, they have become scarce near the British colonies, 
and, with all other native animals, are likely to be extirpated. 
In Van Diemen's Land, they are less persecuted; several 



LIVING AND EXTINCT GENERA. 355 

species exist there. A wild dog in the woods, whose 
habits are ferocious, is the largest carniTorous animal in 
Australia. 

The gnawing animals are aquatic and very peculiar, but 
the toothless animals of New Holland are quite extraordi- 
nary ; of these there are two genera, the platypus ornitho- 
rynchus, or duck-billed mole, and the echidna: they are the 
link that connects the edentata with the pouched tribe. The 
duck-billed mole is about 14 inches long, and covered with 
thick brown fur ; its head is similar to that of a quadruped, 
ending in a bill like that of a duck ; it has short furry legs 
with half-webbed feet, and the hind feet are armed with 
sharp claws. The burrows it inhabits on the banks of rivers 
have two entrances, one above and the other below the level 
- of the water, which it seldom leaves, feeding on insects and 
seeds in the mud. 

The echidna is similar in structure to the platypus, but 
entirely different in external appearance, being covered with 
quills like the porcupine; it is also a burrowing animal, 
sleeps during w^inter, and lives on ants in summer. 

A singular analogy exists between Australia and South 
America in this respect, that.' the living animals of the two 
countries are stamped with the type of their ancient geologi- 
cal inhabitants, w'hile in England and elsewhere the differ- 
. ence between the existing and extinct generation of beings 
is most decided. Australia and South America seem still to 
retain some of those conditions that were peculiar to the 
most ancient eras. Thus each tribe of the innumerable fami- 
lies that inhabit the earth, the air, and the waters, has a 
limited sphere. How wonderful the quantity of life that now 
is, and the myriads of beings that have appeared and van- 
ished. Dust has returned to dust through a long succession 
of ageSf, and has been continually remoulded into new forms 
of existence — not an atom has been annihilated : the fate of 
the vital spark that has animated it, wi:th a vividness some- 
times approaching to reason, is one of the deep mysteries of 
Providence. 



356 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

THE DISTRIBUTION, CONDITION, AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF 
THE HUMAN RACE. 

More than 860,000,000 of human beings are scattered over 
the face of the earth, of all nations and kindreds and tongues; 
and in all stages of civilization, from a high state of moral 
and intellectual culture, to savages but little above the ani- 
mals that contend with them for the dominion of the deserts 
and forests through which they roam. This vast multitude 
is divided into nations and tribes, differing in external ap- 
pearance, character, language, and religion. The manner 
in which they are distributed, the affinities of structure and 
language by which they are connected, and the effect that 
climate, food, and customs may have had in modifying their 
external form, or their moral and mental powers, are sub- 
jects of much more difficulty than the geographical disper- 
sion of the lower classes, inasmuch as the immortal spirit is 
the chief agent in all that concerns the human race. The 
progress of the universal mind in past ages, its present state, 
and the future prospects of humanity, rouse the deep sympa- 
thies of our nature for the high but mysterious destiny of 
the myriads of beings yet to come, who, like ourselves, 
will be subject for a few brief years to the joys and sor- 
rows of this transient state, and fellow-heirs of eternal life 
hereafter. 

Notwithstanding the extreme diversity, personal and men- 
tal, in mankind, anatomists have found that there arc no 
specific differences — that the hideous Esquimaux, the refined 
and intellectual Circassian, the thick-lipped swarthy Negro, 
and the fair blue-eyed Scandinavian, are mere varieties of 
the same species. The human race forms five great classes 
or families, marked by strong distinctive characters. Many 
nations are included in each, distinguished from one another 
by different languages, manners, and mental qualities, yet. 



CLASSES OF THE HUMAN RACE. 357 

bearing such a resemblance in structure and physiognomy as 
to justify a classification apparently anomalous. 

The Circassian group of nations, which includes the hand- 
somest and most intellectual portion of mankind, inhabit all 
Europe, except Lapland, Finland, and Hungary ; they oc- 
cupy North Africa as far as the 20th parallel of north lati- 
tude, Arabia, Asia Minor, . Persia, the Himalaya to the 
Brahmapootra, all India between these mountains and the 
ocean, and the United States of North America. These na- 
tions are remarkable for a beautifully-shaped smail head, 
regular features, fine hair, and symmetrical form. The 
Greeks, Georgians, and Circassians are models of perfec- 
tion in form, especially the last, assumed as the type of this 
class of mankind ; of which it is evident that colour is not a 
characteristic, since they are of all shades, from the fair and 
florid to the clear dark brown and almost black.. This family 
of nations has always been, and still is, the most civilized 
portion of the human race. The inhabitants of Hindostan, 
the Egyptians, Arabians, Greeks, and Romans, were in an- 
cient times what the European nations are now. The cause of 
this remarkable development of mental power is no doubt 
natural disposition, for the difference in the capabilities of 
nations seems to be as great as that of individuals. The 
origin of spontaneous civilization and superiority may gene- 
rally be traced to the talent of some master-spirit gaining an 
ascendency over his countrymen. Natural causes have also 
combined with mental — mildness of climate, fertility of soil ; 
rivers and inland seas, by aflfording facility of intercourse, 
favoured enterprise and commerce ; and the double-river 
systems in Asia brought distant nations together, and soft- 
ened those hostile antipathies which separate people, multi- 
ply languages, and reduce all to barbarism. The genius of 
this family of nations has led them to profit by these natural 
advantages, whereas the American Indians are at this day 
wandering as barbarous hordes in one of the finest countries 
in the world. An original similarity or even identity of many 
of the spoken languages, may be adverted to as facilitating 
communication and mental improvement among the Circas- 
sian class in very ancient times. 

The Mongol-Tartar family forms the second group of na- 
tions. They occupy all Asia north of the Persian table- 
land and of the Himalaya, the whole of eastern Asia from the 



358 PJIYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Brahmapootra to Beh ring's Straits, together with the Arctic 
regions of North America south to Labrador. This family 
inchides the Tourkomans, Mongol and Tartar tribes, the 
Chinese, Indo-Chinese, Japanese, and Esquimaux ; and the 
Hungarians in the very heart of Europe. These nations are 
distinguished by broad skulls and high cheek-bones, with 
small black eyes obliquely set, long black hair, and a yellow 
or sallow olive complexion ; some are good looking, and 
many are well made. A portion of this family is capable of 
high culture, especially the Chinese, the most civilized na- 
tion of eastern Asia, although they never have attained the 
excellence of the Caucasian group, probably from their ex- 
clusive social system, which has separated them from the 
rest of mankind and kept them stationary for ages ; the pecu- 
liarity and difficulty of their language have also tended to 
insulate them. The Kalmuks, who lead a pastoral, wander-, 
ing life, on the steppes of Central Asia, and the Esquimaux, 
have wider domains than any other of this set of nations. 
The Kalmuks are rather a handsome people, and like all who 
lead a savage life, have acute senses of seeing and hearing. 
The inhabitants of Finland and Lapland are nearly allied to 
the Esquimaux, who occupy all the high latitudes of both 
continents — a diminutive race, equally ugly in face and. 
form. 

Malayan nations occupy the Indian Archipelago, New 
Zealand, Chatham Island, the Society group, and several 
other of the Polynesian islands, together with the Philippines 
and Formosa. They are very dark, with lank coarse black 
hair, flat face, and obliquely set eyes. Endowed with great 
activity and ingenuity, they are mild and gentle, and far 
advanced in the arts of social life, in some places ; in others, 
ferocious and revengeful, daring and predatory: and, from 
their maritime position and skill, they are a migratory race. 
Several branches of this class of nations had a very early 
indigenous civilization, with an original literature in peculiar 
characters of their own. 

The Ethiopian nations are widely dispersed ; they occupy 
all Africa south of the Great Desert, half of Madagascar, the 
continent of Australia, Mindanao, Gilolo, the high lands of 
Borneo, Sumbawa, Timor, and New Ireland. The distin- 
guishing characters of this group are a black complexion, 
black woolly or frizzled hair, thick lips, projecting jaws, 



AMERICANS, 359 

high cheek-bones, and large prominent eyes. A great va- 
riety, however, exists in this jetty race. Some are hand- 
some both in face and figure, especially in Ethiopia ; and 
even in Western-^Africa, where the negro tribes live, there 
are groups in which the distinctive characters are less exag- 
gerated. This great family has not yet attained a high 
place among the nations, though by no means incapable of 
cultivation ; and part of Ethiopia appears to have made con- 
siderable advances in civilization in very ancient times. 
But the formidable deserts, so extensive in some parts of the 
continent, and the unwholesome climate in others, have cut 
off the intercourse with civilized nations ; and, unfortunately, 
the infamous traffic in slaves, to the disgrace of Christianity, 
has made the nations of tropical Africa more barbarous than 
they were before ; while, on the contrary, the Foulahs and 
other tribes, who were converts to Mohammedanism 400 
years agO, have now large commercial towns, cultivated 
grounds, and schools. The Australians and Papuans, who 
inhabit the Eastern islands mentioned, are the most degraded 
of this dark race, and indeed of all mankind. 
■ The American race, who occupy the whole of that conti- 
nent from 62° N. lat. to the Straits of Magellan, are almost 
all of a reddish-brown or copper colour, with long black 
hair, deep-set black eyes, aquiline nose, and often of hand- 
some slender forms. In North America they live by hunting, 
are averse to agriculture, slow in acquiring knowledge, but 
extremely acute, brave, and fond of war ; and though re- 
vengeful, are capable of generosity and gratitude. In South 
America many are half civilized, but a greater number are 
still in a state of utter barbarism. In. a family so widely 
scattered, great diversity of character prevails; yet throughout 
the whole there is a similarity of manners and habits, which 
has resisted all the effects of time and climate. 

Each of these five groups of nations, spread 'over vast 
regions, is accounted one family ; and if they are so by 
physical structure, they are still more so by language, which 
expresses the universal mind of a people, modified by ex- 
ternal circumstances, of which none have a greater influence 
than the geographical features of the country they inhabit, 
and that influence is deepest in the early stages of society. 
The remnants of ancient poetry in the south of Scotland 
partake of the gentle and pastoral character of the country; 



360 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

while Celtic verse, and even the spoken language of the 
Highlander, are full of the poetical images of war and stern 
mountain scenery. As civilization advances, and man be- 
comes more intellectual, the language keeps pace in the pro- 
gress. New words and new expressions are added, as new 
ideas occur and new things are invented, till at last language 
itself becomes a study, is refined, and perfected by the intro- 
duction of general terms. The art of printing perpetuates a 
tongue, and great authors immortalize it ; yet language is 
ever changing to a certain degree, though it never loses 
traces of its origin. Chaucer and Spenser have become ob- 
scure ; Shakspeare requires a glossary for the modern 
reader ; and in the few years that the United States of Ame- 
rica have existed as an independent nation the speech has 
deviated from the mother tongue. When a nation degene- 
rates, it is split by jealousy and war into tribes, each of 
which in process of time acquires a peculiar idiom, and thus 
the number of dialects is increased, though they still retain 
a similarity ; whereas when masses of mankind are united 
into great political bodies, their languages by degrees assimi- 
late to one common tongue, which retains traces of all to the 
latest ages. The form of the dialects now spoken by some 
savage tribes, as the North American Indians, bears the 
marks of a once higher state of civilization. 

More than 2000 languages are spoken, but few are inde- 
pendent ; some are connected by words having the same 
meaning, some by grammatical structure, others by both ; 
indeed the permanency of language is so great, that neither 
ages of conquest nor mixing with other nations have obli- 
terated the native idiom of a people. The French, Spanish, 
and German retain traces of the common language spoken 
before the Roman conquest, and the Celtic tongUe still exists 
in the British Islands. 

By a comparison of their dialects, nations far apart, and 
differing in every other respect, are discovered to haTe 
sprung from a common, though remote origin. Thus all the 
numerous languages spoken by the American Indians, or red 
men, are similar in grammatical^tructure : an intimate ana- 
logy exists in the languages of the Esquimaux nations, who 
inhabit the Arctic regions of both continents. Dialects of 
one tongue are spoken throughout North Africa, as far south 
as the oasis of Siwah on the east and the Canary Islands on 



PERMANENCY OF PECULIARITIES. 361 

the west. Another group of cognate idioms is common to 
the inhabitants of equatorial Africa ; while all the southern 
part of the continent is inhabited by people whose languages 
are connected. The monosyllabic speech of the Chinese 
and Indo-Chinese shows that they are the same people, and 
all the insular nations of the Pacific derived their dialects 
from some tribes on the continent of India and the Indian 
Archipelago. 

The Persian, Arabic, Greek, Latin, German, and Celtic 
tongues are connected by grammatical structure, and words 
expressive of the same objects and feelings with the Sans- 
crit, or sacred language of India ; consequently the nations 
inhabiting the British Islands and these extensive districts 
of the Continent must have had the same origin. 

The two methods of classing mankind that have been 
mentioned do not perfectly agree, nor does either of them 
include the whole, but an approximation is all that can be 
attained in so complicated a subject. 

It is no difficult matter to see how changes may occur in 
speech, but no circumstance in the natural world is more 
inexplicable than the diversity of form and colour in the 
human race. It had already begun in the Antediluvian 
world, for " there were giants in the land in those days." 
No direct mention is made of colour at that time, unless the 
mark set upon Cain, " lest any one finding him should kill 
him," may allude to it. Perhaps, also, it may be inferred 
that black people dwelt in Ethiopia, or the land of Cush, 
which means black in the Hebrew tongue. At all events, 
the difference now existing must have arisen after the flood, 
consequently all must have originated with Noah, whose 
wife, or the wives of his sons, may have been of different 
colours for aught we know. 

Many instances have occurred in modern times of albinos 
and red-haired individuals having been born of black parents, 
and these have transmitted their peculiarities to their de- 
scendants for several generations ; but it may be doubted 
whether pure-blooded white people have ever had perfectly 
black offspring. The varieties are much more likely to have 
arisen from the effects of climate, food, customs, and civili- 
zation upon migratory groups of mankind, and of such a 
few instances have occurred in historical times, limited, 
however, to small numbers and particular spots ; but the 
31 



362 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

great mass of nations had received their distinctive characters 
at a very early period. The permanency of type is one of 
the most striking circumstances, and shows the immense 
length of time necessary to produce a change in national 
structure and colour. A nation of Ethiopians exist(^d 3450 
years ago, which emigrated from a remote country and set- 
tled near Egypt, and there must have ,been black people 
before the age of Solomon, otherwise he vi'ould not have 
alluded to colour even poetically. Besides, the national 
appearance of the Ethiopians, Persians, and Jews has not 
varied for more than 3000 years, as appears from the ancient 
Egyptian paintings in the tomb of Rhameses the Great, dis- 
covered at Thebes by Belzoni, in which the countenance of 
the modern Ethiopian and Persian can be readily recog- 
nised, and the Jewish features and colour are identical with 
those of the Israelites daily met with in London. As there 
is no instance of a new variety of mankind having been 
established as a nation since the Christian era, there must 
either have been a greater energy in the causes of change 
before that era, or, brief as man's span on earth has been, a 
wrong estimate of time antecedent to the Christian period 
must have made it shorter. 

Darkness of complexion has been attributed to the sun's 
power from the age of Solomon to this day. " Look not upon 
me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon 
me :" and there cannot be a doubt, that to a certain degree 
the opinion is well founded. The invisible rays in the solar 
beams, which change vegetable colour, and have been em- 
ployed with such remarkable effect in the Daguerreotype, 
act upon every substance on which they fall, producing 
mysterious and wonderful changes in their molecular state, 
man not excepted. 

Other causes must have been combined to occasion all 
the varieties we now see, otherwise every nation between 
the tropics would be of the same hue ; whereas the sooty 
negro inhabits equatorial Africa, the red man equinoctial 
America, and both are mixed with fairer tribes. In Asia, 
the Rohillas, a fair race, inhabit the plains south of the 
Ganges ; the Bengalee and the mountaineers of Nepaul are 
dark, and the Mahrattas are yellow. Even supposing that 
diversity of colour is owing to the sun's rays only, it is 
scarcely possible to attribute the thick lips, the woolly hair, 



FOOD AND CLIMATE. 363 

and the entire difference of form, extending even to the 
very bones and skull, to any thing but a variety of concur- 
ring circumstances, not omitting the invisible influence of 
electricity, which pervades every part of the earth and air, 
and possibly terrestrial magnetism. 

The flexibility of man's constitution enables him to live 
in every climate from the equator to the ever-frozen coasts 
of Nova Zembla and Spitzbefgen and that chiefly by his 
capability of bearing the extremest changes of temperature 
and diet, which are probably the principal causes of the 
variety in his fornd. It has already been mentioned that 
oxygen is inhaled with the atmospheric air, and also taken 
in by the pores in the skin ; part of it combines chemi- 
cally with the carbon of the food, and is expired in the form 
of carbonic-acid gas and water; that chemical action is the 
cause of vital force and heat in man and animals. The 
quantity of food must be in exact proportion to the quantity 
of oxygen inhaled, otherwise disease and loss of strength 
would follow. Since cold air is incessantly carrying off 
warmth from the skin, more exercise^ is requisite in winter 
than in summer, in cold climates than in warm ; conse- 
quently more carbon is necessary in the former than in the 
latter, in order to maintain the chemical action that generates 
heat, and to ward off" the destructive effects of the oxygen, 
which incessantly strives to consume the body. Animal 
food, wine and spirits contain many times more carbon 
than fruit and vegetables, therefore animal food is much 
more necessary in a cold than in a hot climate. The Esqui- 
maux, who lives by the chase, and eats 10 or 12 pounds 
weight of meat and fat in 24 hours, finds it not more than 
enough to keep up his strength and animal heat; while the 
indolent inhabitant of Bengal is sufficiently supplied with both 
by his rice diet. Clothing and warmth make the necessityfor 
exercise and food much less, by diminishing the waste of ani- 
mal heat. Hunger and cold united soon consume the body, 
because it loses its power of resisting the action of the oxygen, 
which consumes part of our substance when food is wanting. 
Hence nations inhabiting warm climates have no great merit 
in being abstemious, nor are those committing an excess 
who live more freely in the colder countries. The arrange- 
ment of Divine Wisdom is to be admired as much in this as 
in all other things, for if man had only been capable of living 



364 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

on vegetable food, he never could have had a permanent 
residence beyond the latitude where corn rijoens. The Es- 
quimaux and air the inhabitants of the very high latitudes of 
both continents live entirely on fish and animal food. 

A nation or tribe driven by war, or any other cause, from 
a warm to a cold country, or the contrary, would be forced 
to change their food both as to quantity and quality, which 
in the lapse of ages might produce an alteration in the ex- 
ternal form and internal structure. The probability is still 
greater, if the entire change that a few years produces in the 
matter of the human frame be considered. At every instant 
during life, with every motion, voluntary and involuntary, 
with every thought and exercise of the brain, a portion of 
our substance becomes dead, separates from the living part, 
combines with some of the inhaled oxygen, and is removed. 
By this process it is supposed that the whole body is renewed 
every seven years: individuality, therefore, depends on the 
spirit, which retains its identity during all the changes of its 
earthly house, and sometimes even acts independently of it. 
When sleep is restoring exhausted nature, the spirit is often 
awake and active, crowding the events of years into a few 
seconds, and, by its unconsciousness of time, anticipates eter- 
nity. Every change of food, climate, and mental excite- 
ment must have their influence on the reproduction of the 
mortal frame; and thus a thousand causes may co-operate to 
alter whole racesof mankind placed under newcircumstances, 
time being granted. 

The difference between the effects of manual labour and 
the efforts of the brain appears in the intellectual countenance 
of the educated man, compared with that of the peasant, 
though he also is occasionally stamped with nature's own no- 
bility. The most savage people are also the ugliest. Their 
countenance is deformed by violent unsubdued passions, 
anxiety, and suffering. Deep sensibility gives a beautiful 
and varied expression, but every strong emotion is unfavour- 
able to perfect regularity of feature ; and of that the ancient 
Greeks were well aware when- they gave that calmness of 
expression and repose to their unrivalled statues. The re- 
fining effects of high culture, and, above all, the Christian 
religion, by subduing the evil passions, and encouraging the 
good, are more than any thing calculated to improve even 
the external appearance. The countenance, though perhaps 



INTELLECTUAL AND PHYSICAL FORM. 365 

of less regular form, becomes expressive of the amiable and 
benevolent feelings of the heart, the most captivating and 
lasting of all beauty. 

Thus an infinite assemblage of causes maybe assigned as 
having produced the endless varieties in the human race ; 
but the fact remains an inscrutable mystery not to be ex- 
plained, more than why twin-brothers are not exactly alike. 
But amidst all the physical vicissitudes man has undergone, 
the species remains permanent; and let those who think that 
the difference in the species of animals and vegetables arises 
from diversity of conditionsj consider that no circumstances 
whatever can degrade the form of man to that of the monkey, 
or elevate the monkey to the form of man. 

Animals and vegetables, being the sources of man's sus- 
tenance, have had the chief influence on his destiny and lo- 
cation, and have induced him to settle in those parts of the 
world where he could procure them in greatest abundance. 
Wherever the chase or the spontaneous productions of the 
earth supply him with food, he is completely savage, and 
only a degree further advanced where he plants the palm 
and banana ; where grain is the principal food, industry and 
intelligence are most perfectly developed, as in the tempe- 
rate zone. On that account, the centres of civilization have 
generally been determined, not -by hot, but genial climate, 
fertile soil, by the vicinity of the sea-coast or great rivers, 
affording the means of fishing and transport, which last has 
been one of the chief causes of the superiority of Europe and 
southern Asia. The mineral treasures of the earth have been 
the means of assembling great masses of men in Siberia and 
the table-land of the Andes, and have given rise to many 
great cities, both in England and North America. Nations 
inhabiting elevated table-lands and high ungenial latitudes 
have been driven there by war, or obliged to wander from 
countries where the population exceeded the means of living 
— a cause to which both languao-e and tradition bear testi- 

o s 

mony. The belief in a future state, so universal, and shown 
by respect for the dead, has no doubt been transmitted from 
nation to nation. The American Indians, driven from their 
hunting-grounds, still make pilgrimages to the tombs of their 
fathers; and these tribes alone, of all civilized mankind, 
worship the Great Spirit as the invisible God and Father of 
all — a degree of abstract refinement which could hardly 
31* 



366 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

have sprung up spontaneously among a rude people, and 
must have been transmitted from races who held the Jewish 
faith. 

The influence of external circumstances on man is not 
greater than his influence on the material world. It is true, 
he cannot create power ; but he dexterously avails himself 
of the powers of nature to subdue nature. Air, lire, water, 
steam, gravitation, his own muscular strength and that of 
animals, have been the instruments by which he has con- 
verted the desert into a garden, drained marshes, turned the 
course of rivers, cut canals, made roads, cleared away forests 
in one country, and planted them in another. By these 
works he has altered the climate, changed the course of local 
winds, increased or diminished the quantity of rain, and 
softened the rigour of the seasons. In the time of Strabo, the 
cold in France was so intense, that it was thought impossi- 
ble to ripen grapes north of the Cevennes ; and the Rhine 
and Danube were every winter covered with ice thick enough 
to bear any weight. Man's influence on vegetation has been 
immense, but the most important changes were produced in 
the antediluvian ages of the world. Cain was a tiller of the 
ground. The olive, the vine, and the fig-tree have been 
cultivated time immemorial: wheat, rice, and barley have 
been so long in an artificial state that their origin is un- 
known: even maize, which is a Mexican plant, was in use 
among the American tribes before the Spanish conquest; and 
tobacco was already used by them to allay the pangs of hun- 
ger, to which those who depend upon the chase for food 
must be exposed. Most of the ordinary culinary vegetables 
have been known for ages ; and it is singular that in these 
days, when our gardens are adorned with innumerable native 
plants in a cultivated state, no new grain, vegetable, or fruit 
has been reclaimed: the old have been produced in infinite 
variety, and many brought from foreign countries; yet there 
must exist many plants capable of cultivation, as unpromis- 
ing in their wild state as the turnip or carrot. 

Some families of plants are more susceptible of improve- 
ment than others, and, like man himself, can bear almost any 
climate. One kind of wheat grows to 62° N. lat. ; rye and 
barley succeed still farther north ; and few countries are ab- 
solutely without grass. The cruciform tribe abounds in use- 
ful plants; indeed, that family, together with the solanum, 



REFINEMENTS IN CIVILIZATION. 367 

the papilionaceous, and umbelliferous tribes, furnish most of 
our vegetables. Many plants, like animals, are of but one 
colour in their wild state, and their blossoms are single. 
Art has introduced that variety we now see in the same spe- 
cies ; and by changing the anthers of the wild flower into 
petals, has produced double blossoms: by art, too, many 
plants of warm countries have been naturalized in colder. 
Few useful plants have beautiful blossoms ; but if utility were 
the only object, of what pleasure should we be deprived ? 
Refinement is not altogether wanting in the inmates of a cot- 
tage covered with roses and honeysuckle ; and the little gar- 
den, cultivated amidst a life of toil, tells of a peaceful 
home. 

Among the objects which tend to the improvement of our 
race, the flower-garden and the park, adorned with na- 
tive and foreign trees, have no small share : they are the 
greatest ornaments of the British Islands ; and the love of a 
country life, which is so strong a passion, is chiefly owing to 
the law of primogeniture, by which the head of a family is 
secured in the possession and transmission of his undivided 
estate, and therefore each generation takes a pride and plea- 
sure in adorning the home of their forefathers. 

Animals yield more readily to man's influence than vege- 
tables ; but certain classes have a greater flexibility of dis- 
position and structure than others. Those only are capable 
of being perfectly reclaimed that have a natural tendency for 
it, without which man's endeavours would be unavailing. 
This predisposition is greatest in animals that are gregarious 
and follow a leader, which elephants, dogs, horses, and cat- 
tle do in their wild state ; but even among these some spe- 
cies are refractory, as the buflalo, which can only be regarded 
as half reclaimed. The canine tribe, on the contrary, are 
capable of the greatest attachment ; not the dog only, man's 
faithful companion, but even the wolf, and especially the 
hyaena, generally believed to be so ferocious. After an 
absence of many months, a hysena recognised the voice of a 
friend of the author before he came in sight, and on seeing 
him it showed the greatest joy, lay down like a dog and 
licked his hands. He had been kind to it on the voyage 
from India, and no animal forgets kindness, which is the 
surest way of reclaiming them. There cannot be a greater 
mistake than the harsh and cruel means by which dogs and 



368 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

horses are too commonly trained ; but it is long before man 
learns that his power is mental, and that it is his intellect 
alone that has given him dominion over the earth and its 
inhabitants, many of which far surpass him in physical 
strength. The useful animals were reclaimed by the early 
inhabitants of Asia, and little has been left for modern na- 
tions but the improvement of the species, and in that they 
have been very successful. The variety of horses, dogs, 
oxen, and sheep is beyond number. The form, colour, and 
even the disposition, may be materially altered, and the 
habits engrafted are transmitted to the offspring, as instinc- 
tive properties independent of education. Domestic fowls 
go in flocks in their native woods, when wild. There are, 
however, instances of solitary birds being tamed to an extra- 
ordinary degree, as the raven, one of the most sagacious. 

Man's necessities and pleasureshave been the cause of great 
changes in the animal creation, but his destructive propensity 
still greater. Animals are intended for our use, and field- 
sports are advantageous by encouraging a daring and active 
spirit in young men ; but the utter destruction of some races, 
in order to protect those destined for his amusement, is too 
selfish. Animals soon acquire an instinctive dread of man, 
which becomes hereditary. In newly discovered unin- 
habited countries, birds and beasts are so tame as to allow 
themselves to be taken. Whales scarcely got out of the 
way of the ships that first navigated the Arctic Ocean, but 
they now have a dread of the common enemy. Many land 
animals and birds are vanishing before the advance of civili- 
zation. Sea-fowl and birds of passage are not likely to be 
extinguished. The inaccessible cliffs of the Himalaya and 
the Andes will afTord a refuge to the eagle and the condor ; 
but the time will come when the mighty forests of the Ama- 
zons and Orinoco will disappear with the myriads of their 
joyous inhabitants. The lion, the tiger, and the elephant 
will be known only by ancient records. Man, the lord of 
the creation, will extirpate the noble creatures of the earth, 
but he himself will ever be the slave of the canker-worm 
and the fly. Cultivation may lessen the scourge of the 
insect tribe, but God's great army will ever from time to 
time appear suddenly, no one knows from whence ; and the 
locust will come from the desert, and destroy the fairest 
prospects of the harvest. 



PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION. 369 

' Though the unreclaimed portion of the animal creation is 
falling before the progress of improvement, yet man has been 
both the voluntary and the involuntary cause of the introduc- 
tion of new animals and plants into countries in which they 
were not native. The Spanish conquerors little thought that the 
descendants of the horses and cattle they allowed to run wild 
would resume the original character of their species, and roam 
in hundreds of thousands over the savannahs of South Ame- 
rica. Wherever man is, civilized or savage, there also is the 
dog ; but he too has in some places resumed his native state 
and habits, and hunts in packs. Domestic animals, grain, 
fruit, vegetables, and the weeds that grow with them, have 
been conveyed by colonists to all settlements. Birds and 
insects follow certain plants into countries in which they 
were never seen before. Even the inhabitants of the waters 
change their abode in consequence of the influence of man. 
Fish, natives of the rivers on the coast of the Mexican Gulf, 
have migrated by the canals to the heart of North America ; 
and the mytilus polymorphus, a shell-fish brought to the 
London docks in the timbers of ships from the brackish 
waters of the Black Sea and its tributary streams, has spread 
into the interior of England by the Croydon and other 
canals. 

The influence of man on man is a power of the highest 
order, far surpassing that which he possesses over inanimate 
or animal nature ; and at no time did the mental superiority 
of the cultivated races produce such changes as they do at 
present. In civilized society, the number of people in the 
course of time exceeds the means of sustenance, which com- 
pels some to emigrate ; others are induced by a spirit of 
enterprise to go to new countries, some for the love of gain, 
others to fly from oppression. 

The discovery of the new world opened a wide field for 
emigration. Spain and Portugal, the first to avail them- 
selves of it, acquired dominion over some of the finest parts 
of South America, which they have maintained, till lately a 
change of times has rendered their colonies independent 
states. Liberal opinions have spread into the interior of the 
continent in proportion to the facility of communication with 
the cities on the coasts, from whence European ideas are dis- 
seminated. Of this Venezuela is an instance, where civili- 
zation and prosperity have advanced more rapidly than in the 



370 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

southern parts of Colombia, where the Andes are higher, and 
the distance from the Atlantic, greater. Civilization has been 
impeded in many of the smaller states by war and those broils 
inevitable among people unaccustomed to free institutions ; 
and Brazil would have been farther advanced but for slavery, 
that stain on the human race, which corrupts the master as 
much as it debases the slave. 

Some of the native South American tribes have sponta- 
neously made considerable progress in civilization in modern 
times; others have been benefited by the Spanish and Por- 
tuguese colonists ; and many tribes have been brought into 
subjection by the Jesuits, who have instructed them in some 
of the arts of social life : but these Indians are not more reli- 
gious than their neighbours ; and, from restraint, they have 
lost vigour of character without improving in intellect, so 
that they are now either stationary or retrograde. But ex- 
tensive regions are still the abode of men in the lowest state 
of barbarism ; almost all those inhabiting the silvas of the 
Orinoco, x4mazons, and Uruguay are cannibals. 

The arrival of the colonists in North America sealed the 
fate of the red man. The inhabitants of the Union, too late, 
awakened to the just claims of the ancient proprietors of the 
land, have recently, but vainly, attempted to save the rem- 
nant. The white man, like an irresistible torrent, has 
already reached the centre of the continent ; and the native 
tribes now retreat towards the far west, and will continue to 
retreat till the Pacific Ocean arrests them, and the animals 
on their hunting-grounds are exterminated. The almost uni- 
versal dislike the Indian has shown for the arts of peace has 
been one of the principal causes of his decline, although the 
Cherokee tribe, which has lately removed to the west of the 
Mississippi, is a remarkable exception : the greater number 
of them are industrious planters or mechanics ; they have a 
republican government, and publish a newspaper in their 
own language, in a character lately invented by one of that 
nation. 

No part of the world has been the scene of greater iniquity 
than the West Indian Islands, and that perpetrated by the 
most enlightened nations of Europe. The native race has 
long been swept away by the stranger, and a new people, 
cruelly torn from their homes, have been made the slaves of 
hard task-masters. If the odious participation in this guilt 



GRADUAL EXTINCTION OF SLAVERY. 371 

has been a stain on the British name, the abolition of slavery 
by the universal acclamation of the nation will ever form 
one of the brightest pages in their history, so full of glory ; 
nor will.it be the less so that justice was combined with 
mercy, by the millions granted to indemnify the proprietors. 
It is deeply to be lamented that our brethren on the other 
side of the Atlantic have not followed the example of their 
fatherland; but in limited monarchies the voice of the peo- 
ple is listened to, while republican governments are more 
apt to become its slave. The northern States have nobly 
declared every man free who sets his foot on their territory ; 
and the time will come when the southern States will sacri- 
fice interest to justice and mercy. 

It seems to be the design of Providence to supplant the savage 
by civilized man in the continent of Australia as well as in North 
America, though every effort has been made to prevent the 
extinction of the natives. Most of the tribes in that continent 
are as low in the rank of mankind as the cannibal Fuegians 
whom Captain Fitzroy so generously but ineffectually at- 
tempted to tame. Some of the New Hollanders are faithful 
servants for a time ; but they almost always return to their 
former habits, though truly miserable in a country where the 
means of existence are so scanty. Animals and birds are very 
scarce ; and there is no fruit or vegetable for the sustenance 
of man. 

Slavery has been a greater impediment to the improve- 
ment of the nations of Africa than even the physical disad- 
vantages of the country, the great arid deserts and unwhole- 
some coasts. A spontaneous civilization has arisen in various 
parts of southern and tropical Africa, in which there has 
been considerable progress in agriculture and commerce ; but 
civilized man has been a scourge on the Atlantic coast, which 
has extended its influence into the heart of the continent, by 
the encouragement it has given to warfare among the natives 
for the capture of slaves, and by the introduction of Euro- 
pean vices, vmredeemed by Christian virtues. Now that 
France and England have united in the suppression of this 
odious traffic, some hope may be entertained that their 
colonies may be beneficial to the natives, and that other 
nations may follow their example, in which, however, they 
have been anticipated by three Mohammedan sovereigns. 
The Sultan has abolished the slave-market in Constanti- 



372 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

nople ; Ibrahim Pasha, on his return from France and Eng- 
land, gave freedom to his bondsmen in Egypt ; and the Bey 
of Tunis has abolished slavery in his dominions. 

The French are zealous in improving the people in Al- 
giers ; but the constant state of warfare in which they have 
been involved ever since their conquest, must render their 
success in civilizing the natives at least remote. And ,the 
inhabitants of those extensive and magnificent countries that 
have long been colonized by -the Dutch, have made but 
little progress under their rule. 

The British colony at the Cape of Good Hope has had 
considerable influence on the neighbouring rude nations, 
who begin to adopt more civilized habits. When Mr. 
Somerville visited Latakoo, the natives were scantily co- 
vered with skins, and they saw horses for the first time. 
Dr. Smith, who visited them twenty years afterwards, found 
the chief men mounted on horseback, wearing hats made of 
rushes, and an attempt to imitate European dress. 

Colonization has nowhere produced such happy effects as 
among the amiable and cultivated inhabitants of India, who 
are sensible of the benefits they derive from the impartial 
administration of just and equal laws, the foundation of 
schools and colleges, and the extension of commerce. 

All the causes of emigration have operated by turns on 
the inhabitants of Britain, and various circumstances have 
concurred to make their colonies permanent. In North 
America, that which not many years ago was a British 
colony has become a great independent nation, occupying a 
large portion of the continent. The Australian continent 
will in after ages be peopled by British nations, and will 
become a centre of civilization which will extend its influ- 
ence to the uttermost islands of the Pacific. These splendid 
islands, possessing every advantage of climate and soil, with 
a population in many parts far advanced in the arts of civilized 
life, industry, and commerce, though in others savage, will 
in time come in for a share of the general improvement. 
The success that has attended the noble and unaided eflforts 
of Mr. Brooke in Borneo, shows how much the influence of 
an active mind can effect. 

^ The colonies on the continent of India are already centres 
from which the culture of Europe is spreading over the 
East. 



FACILITIES OF INTERCOURSE. 373 

' Commerce'has no. less influence on mankind than coloni- 
zation, with which it is intimately connected ; and the nar- 
row limits of the British Islands have rendered it necessary 
for its inhabitants to exert their industry for their well-being. 
The riches of our mines in coal and metals, which produce 
a yearly income of 24,000,000^. sterling, is a principal cause 
of our manufacturing and commercial wealth ; but even 
with these natural advantages, more is due not only to the 
talents and enterprise, but to our high character for faith 
and honour. 

Every country has its pectiliar productions, and by an 
unrestrained interchange of the gifts of Providence the con- 
dition of all is improved. The exclusive jealousy with 
which commerce has hitherto been fettered, shows the length 
of time that is necessary to wear out the eflfects of those 
selfish passions which separated nations when they were yet 
barbarous. It required a high degree of cultivation to break 
down those barriers consecrated by their antiquity, and the 
accomplishment of this important change evinces the rate at 
which the present age is advancing. 

A new era in the history of the world began when China 
was opened to European intercourse; but many years must 
pass before European influence can penetrate that vast em- 
pire, and eradicate those illiberal prejudices by which it has 
so long been governed. 

Two important triumphs yet remain to be achieved by 
the science and energy of man over physical difficulties, 
namely, the junction of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans at 
the Isthmus of Central America, and the union of the Red 
Sea with the Mediterranean at Suez :- when these are ac<;om- 
plished, the expectation of Columbus will be realized — of a 
passage to the East Indies by the Atlantic ; then Alexandria, 
Venice, and Southern Europe will regain, at least in part, 
the mercantile position which they lost by the discovery of 
Vasco de Gama. 

The advantages of colonization and commerce to the less 
civilized part of the world are incalculable, as well as to 
those at home, not only by furnishing an exchange for 
manufactures, important as it is, but by the immense acces- 
sion of knowledge of the earth and its inhabitants that has 
been thus attained. 
32 



374 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

. The history of former ages exhibits nothing to be com- 
pared with the mental activity of the present. Steam, which 
annihilates time and space, fills mankind with schemes for 
advantage or defence ; but however, mercenary the motives 
for enterprise may be, it is instrumental in bringing nations 
together, and uniting them in mutual bonds of friendship. 
The facility of communication is rapidly assimilating national 
character. Society in most of the capitals is formed on the 
same model ; individuality is only met with in the pro- 
vinces, and every well-educated person now speaks more 
than one of the modern languages. 

At no period has science been so extensively and so suc- 
cessfully cultivated ; the collective wisdom and experience 
of Europe and the United States of xlmerica is now brought 
to bear on subjects of the highest importance, in annual 
scientific meetings, where the common pursuit of truth is as 
beneficial to the moral as to the intellectual character, and 
the noble objects of investigation are no longer confined to 
the philosophic few, but are becoming widely diflfused among 
all ranks in civilized nations, and the most enlightened 
governments have given their suppiort to measures that 
could not have been otherwise accomplished. Simultaneous 
observations are made in numerous places, in both hemi- 
spheres, on electricity, magnetism, on the tides and currents 
of the air and the ocean, and those mysterious vicissitudes 
of temperature and moisture which bless the labours of the 
husbandman one, year and blight them in another. 

The places of the nebulae and fixed stars, and their mictions, 
are known with unexampled precision, and the most refined 
analyses embrace the most varied objects. In the far hea- 
vens, from unaccountable disturbances in the motions of Ura- 
nus, an unknown and unseen body w-as declared to be re- 
volving on the utmost verge of the solar system : it was found 
in the very spot pointed out by analysis ; and on earth, though 
hundreds of miles apart, the invisible messenger, electricity, 
instantaneously conveys the thoughts of the invisible spirit 

of man to man — ^^results of science sublimely transcendental. 
The attempt w^ould be vain to enumerate the improvements 
in machinery and mechanics; to follow the rapid course of 
discovery through the complicated mazes of magnetism and 
electricity, the action of the electric current on the polarizecl 



PROGRESS OF SCIEXTIFIC RESEARCH. 375 

sun-beam, one of the most beautiful of modern discoveries, 
leading to relations hitherto unsuspected between that power 
and the complex assemblage of visible and invisible in- 
fluences in solar light, by one of which nature has recently 
been made to paint her own likeness. It is equally impos- 
sible to convey an idea of the rapid succession of the varied 
and curious results of chemistry, and its application to phy- 
siology and agriculture ; moreover, distinguished works have 
lately been published at home and abroad on the science of 
mind, which has been so successfully cultivated in our own 
country. Geography has assumed a new character by that 
unwearied search for accurate knowledge and truth that 
marks the present age, and physical geography is altogether 
a modern science. 

The spirit of nautical and geographical discovery, begun 
in the fifteenth century, by those illustrious navigators who 
had a new world to discover, is at this day as energetic as 
ever, though the results are necessarily less brilliant. Nei- 
ther the long gloomy night of a polar winter nor the dangers 
of the ice and the storm deter our gallant seamen from seek- 
ing a better acquaintance with "this ballof earth," even 
under its most frowning aspect, and that for honour, which 
they are as eager to seek even in the cannon's mouth. Nor 
have other nations of Europe or America been without their 
share in these bold adventures. The scorching sun and 
deadly swamps of the tropics as little prevent the traveller 
from collecting the animals and plants of the present crea- 
tion, or the geologist from investigating those of ages long 
gone by. Man daily vindicates his birth-right as lord of the 
creation, and compels every land and sea to contribute to 
his knowledge. 

The most distinguished modern travellers, following the 
example of Baron Humboldt, the patriarch of physical geo- 
graphy, take a more extended view of the subject than the 
earth and its animal and vegetable inhabitants afford, and 
include in their researches the past and present condition of 
man, the origin, manners, and languages of existing nations, 
and the monuments of those that have been. Geography has 
had its dark ages, during which, the situation of many great 
cities, and spots of celebrity in history, sacred and profane, 
had been entirely lost sight of; which are now discovered 



376 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

by the learning and assiduity of the modern traveller. Of 
this, Italy, Egypt, the Holy Land, Asia Minor, Arabia, and 
the basin of the Euphrates and Tigris, with the adjacent 
mountains of Persia, are remarkable instances, not to men- 
tion the vast region of the East. In many parts of the world 
the ruins of cities, of extraordinary magnitude and workman- 
ship, show that there are wide regions of whose original in- 
habitants we know nothing. The Andes of Mexico and 
Peru have remains of civilized nations before the Incas; Mr. 
Stephens has found in the woods of Central America the ruins 
of great cities, adorned with sculpture and pictorial writings, 
which show that a race far advanced had once cultivated the 
soil where these entangled forests now grow. Picture-writ- 
ings have been discovered by Mr. Schomburgk on rocks in 
Guiana, spread over an extent of 350,000 square miles, 
similar to those found in the United States and in Siberia, 
MagniBcent buildings still exist, in good preservation, all over 
Eastern Asia, and many in a ruinous state belong to a period 
far beyond written record. 

Ancient literature has furnished a subject of still more in-, 
teresting research, which shows that the mind of man is es-. 
sentially the same under very difTerent circumstances; every 
nation far advanced in civilization has had its age of poetry, 
the drama, romance, and philosophy, each stamped with the 
character of the people and times, and still more with their 
religious belief. Our profound Oriental scholars have made 
known to Europeans the refined Sanscrit literature of Hindos- 
taii, its schools of philosophy and astronomy, its dramatic 
writings and poetry, which are original and beautiful. 

The riches of Chinese literature and their valuable geogra- 
phy were introduced into Europe by the French Jesuits of 
the last century, and perfected by the French philosophers 
of the present; to that nation we also owe our knowledge 
of the letters and poetry of ancient Persia: and from the time 
that Dr. Young deciphered the inscriptions on the Rosetta 
Stone, Egyptian hieroglyphics and picture-writing have been 
studied. by the learned, and we have reason to expect much 
new information from Professor iipsius, of Berlin., The 
Germans indeed have left no subject of ancient literature 
unexplored, even to the language spoken at Babylon and 
Nineveh. ' 



PROGRESS IN THE FINE ARTS. 377 

The press has overflowed with an unprecedented quantity 
of literature, some of standard naerit, and much more thai is 
ephemeral, suited to all ranks and on every subject ; and with 
the aim, in our own country at least, to improve the people 
and to advocate the cause of virtue. All this mental energy 
is but an effect of those laws w^hich regulate human affairs, 
and include in their generality the various changes that tend 
.to improve the condition of man. 

The fine arts do not keep pace with science, though they 
' have not been altogether left behind. ' Painting, like poetry, 
must come spontaneously, because a feeling for it depends 
upon innate sympathies in the human breast. Nothing ex- 
ternal could affect us unless there were corresponding ideas 
within ; and poetically constituted minds of the highest orga- 
nization are most deeply impressed with whatever is excel- 
lent. All are not gifted with a strong perception of the beau- 
tiful, just as some persons cannot see certain colours or hear 
certain sounds. Those elevated sentiments which constitute 
genius are given to few ; yet something akin, though infe- 
rior in degree, exists in most men. Consequently, though 
culture may not inspire genius, it cherishes and calls forth 
the natural perception of what is good and beautiful, and by 
that means improves the tone of the national mind, and 
forms a counterpoise to the all-absorbing useful and com- 
mercial. 

Historical painting is successfully cultivated both in France 
and Germany. The Germans have modelled their school 
on the true style of the ancient masters. They have not, in- 
deed, attained their richness of colouring, but many of their 
designs are poetry embodied ; and French artists, following 
in the same steps, have produced historical works of extraor- 
dinary merit. Pictures of the genre and scenes of domestic 
life have been painted -with much expression- and beauty by 
our own artists ; and British landscapes are not mere por- 
traits of nature, but pictures of high poetical feeling ; and the 
perfection of their composition has been acknowledged all 
over Europe by the popularity of the engravings that illus- 
trate many of our modern books. The encouragement given 
to this branch of art at home may be ascribed to the taste for 
a country life so general in England. Water-colour paint- 
ing, which is entirely of British growth, has now become a 
32* 



378 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

favourite style in every country, and is brought to the highest 
perfection in our own. 

The Italians have had the merit of restoring sculpture to 
the pure style which it had lost; and that gifted people have 
produced some of the noblest specimens of modern art. The 
greatest genius of his time left the snows of the far North to 
spend his best days in Rome, the head-quarters of the art; 
and our own sculptors of the most eminent talents have estab- 
lished themselves in Rome, where they find a more conge- 
nial spirit than in their own country, where the compositions 
of Flaxman were not appreciated till they had become the 
admiration of Europe. 

The opera, one of the most refined of theatricaHmaseraeTits 
in every capital city in Europe, shows the power and excel- 
lence of Italian melody, which has been transmitted from age 
to age by a continued succession of great composers. Ger- 
man music, partaking of the learned character of the nation, 
is rich in original harmony, which requires a cultivated taste 
to understand and appreciate. 

Italy is the only country that has had two poetical eras of 
the highest order ; and great as the Latin period wa§, that 
of Dante was more original and sublime. The Germans, so 
eminent in every branch of literature, have been also great 
as poets: the power of Gcithe's genius will render his poems 
as permanent as the language." France is, as it long has been, 
the abode of the Comic Muse ; and although that nation can 
claim great poets of a more serious cast, yet the language 
and the habits of the people are more suited to the gay than 
the grave style. Though the British may have been inferior 
to other nations in some of the fine arts, yet poetry, immea- 
surably the greatest and most noble, redeems, and more than 
redeems us. The nation that has the poetry of Chaucer, 
Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton, with all the brilliant train 
down nearly to the present time, must ever hold a distin-^ 
guished place even as an imaginative people. Shakspeare 
alone would stamp a language with immortality. The British 
novels stand high among works of imagination: they have 
generally had the merit of advancing the cause of morality. 
Had the French novelists attended more to this, their know"- 
ledge of the human heart and the brilliancy of their compo- 
sition would have been more appreciated. 



PROGBESS OF LITERATURE. 379 

Poetry of the highest stamp has fled before the utilitarian 

spirit of the age, yet there is as much talent in the world, 
and imagination too, at the present time, as ever there was 
at any period, though directed to different objects ; but what 
is of more importance, there is a constant increase of liberal 
sentiment and disinterested benevolence. Three of the most 
beneficial systems of modern times are due to the benevolence 
of English ladies, — the improvement of prison discipline, 
savings-banks, and banks for lending small sums to the poor. 
The success of all has exceeded every expectation at home, 
and these admirable institutions are now adopted abroad. 
The importance of popular and agricultural education is be- 
coming an object of attention to the more enlightened govern- 
ments; and one of the greatest improvements in education 
is that teachers are now fitted for their duties by being taught 
the art of teaching. The gentleness with which instruction 
is conveyed no longer blights the joyous days of youth, but, 
on the contrary, encourages self-education, which is the most 
efficient. 

The system of infant schools, established in many parts of 
Europe and throughout the United States of North xA.merica, 
is rapidly improving the moral condition of the people. The 
instruction given in them is suited to the station of the scho- 
lars, and the moral lessons taught are often reflected back on 
the uneducated parents by their children. Moreover, the 
personal intercourse with the higher orders, and the kind- 
ness which the children receive from them, strengthens the 
bond of reciprocal good feeling. Since the abolition of the 
feudal system, the separation between the higher and lower 
classes of society has been increasing; but the generous ex- 
ertions of individuals, whose only object is to do good, is 
now beginning to correct a tendency that, unchecked, might 
have led to the worst consequences to all ranks. 

The voluntary sacrifices that have lately been made to 
relieve the necessities of a famishing nation show the humane 
disposition of the age. But it is not one particular and ex- 
traordinary case, however admirable, that marks the general 
progress — it is not in the earthquake or the storm, but in the 
still small voice of consolation heard in the cabin of the 
wretched, that is the prominent feature of the charities of 
the present time, when the benevolent of all ranks seek for 



380 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

distress in the abode of poverty and vice, to aid and to reform. 
No language can do justice to the merit of those who devote 
themselves to the reformation of those children who have 
hitherto wandered neglected in the streets of great cities, in 
the unpromising task in which they have laboured with 
patience, undismayed by difficulties that might have dis- 
couraged the most determined ; but they have succeeded. 
The language of kindness and sympathy, never before heard 
by these children of crime and wretchedness, is saving mul- 
titudes from perdition. But it would require a volume to 
enumerate the exertions that are making for the accommo- 
dation, health, and improvement of the people, and the 
devotion of high and low to the introduction of new estab- 
lishments and the amelioration of the old. Noble and 
liberal sentiments mark the proceedings of public assemblies, 
whether in the cause of nations or of individuals ; and the 
severity of our penal laws is mitigated by a milder system. 
Happily this liberal and benevolent spirit is not confined to 
Britain ; it is universal in the states of the American Union ; 
it is spreading widely through the more civilized countries 
of Europe. A noble instance that has lately surprised all 
Europe shows how rapidly the wise measures of a truly 
great and good sovereign are raising a fine people to that 
place among the nations which they had lost. No retrograde 
movement can now take place in civilization ; the diffusion 
of Christian virtues and of knowledge insures the progres- 
sive advancement of man in those high moral and intellectual 
qualities that constitute his true dignity. But much yet 
remains to be done at home, especially in religious instruc- 
tion and the prevention of crime ; and abroad millions of 
our fellow-creatures in both hemispheres are still in the 
lowest grade of barbarism. Ages and ages must pass away 
before they can be civilized ; but if there be any analogy 
between the period of man's duration on earth and that of 
the frailest plant or shell-fish of the geological periods, he 
must still be in his infancy ; and let those who doubt of his 
indefinite improvement compare the state of Europe in the 
middle ages, or only fifty years ago, with what it is at pre- 
sent. Some, who seemed to have lived before their time, 
were then prosecuted and punished for opinions which are 
now sanctioned by the legislature and acknowledged by all. 



BENIGN INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 381 

The moral disposition of the age appears in the refinement 
of conversation. Selfishness and evil passions may possibly 
ever be found in the human breast ; but the progress of the 
race will consist in the increasing power of public opinion, 
the collective voice of mankind, regulated by the Christian 
principles of morality and justice. The individuality of man 
modifies his opinions and belief; it is a part of that variety 
which is a universal Ielw of nature ; so that there will pro- 
bably always be difference of views as to religious doctrine, 
which, however, will become more spiritual and freer from 
the taint of human infirmity ; but the power of the Christian 
religion will appear in purer conduct, and in the more general 
practice of mutual forbearance, charity, and love. 



THE END. 



) - - - / 



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MURRAY'S ENCYCLOPAEDIA OE GEOGRAPHY. 



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AND SOCIAL STATE OF ALL NATIONS. 

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Central Iligli School, PMLa., June 29, 1841 
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Secretary's OfHce, ) State of New Yorlc. 

Department of Common Schools, i Albany^ Oct. lith, liJ15. 

Messrs. Lea <J- Blanchard : 

Gentlemen: — 1 have examined the copy of "Wliite's Uni^^ersal History," which you were so 
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those seminaries of elementary instruction. Very respectfully, your obedient seivant, 

SAMUEL S. RANDALL, 
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TEST BOOjES op 3ElCCX.ES21LSTICiJ.I. l-IISTOIfH". 

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THE TUBSSISSS ^1<T^ BT£k^^ZB■H. IJMPIRSS, 

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HISTOH'S' OF THE nE2"OB.1!S.AT3:05^ XM GESSSASTg-, 

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PARTS FIRST, SECOND AND THIRD NOV/ READY. 

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JUST ISSUED. 

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CHEMISTRY OF T nTToiTTlEAio N S , 

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AN ESSAY, PRINCIPALLY CONCERNING NATTTRAL PHENOMENA, AD-MHTING OP 

INTERPRETATION BY CHEmCAL SCIENCE, AND ILLUSTRATING 

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NEW A?FTolmIfr¥E¥ic^ 

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JOHNSON AND LANDRETH ON FRUIT, KITCHEN, 
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liAKDRETH'S RURAL REGISTER AND ALIWANAC, FOR 1848, 

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THE AMERICAN Z.AW OP REAI. PROPERT?. 

SECOND EDITION, REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ENLARGED. 

BY FRANCIS HILLIARD, 

COUNSELLOR AT LAW. 

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This book is. designed as a substitute for Cruise's Digest, occupying the 
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embodies the statutory provisions and adjudged cases of all the States upon 
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rated, thus making it one-third larger than the original work, and bringing 
the view of the law upon the subject treated quite down to the present time. 
The book is recommended in the highest terms by distinguished jurists of 
different States, as will be seen by tne subjoined extracts. 

" The work before us supplies this deficiency in a highly satisfactory manner. It is beyond all 
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Law of Real Property to ' portable size,' and we do not doubt that his labours will be duly appre- 
ciated by the profession." — Lavi Reporter, Aug., 1846. 

Judge Story says : — "I think the work a very valuable addition to our present stock of juridical 
literature. It embraces all that part of Mr. Cruise's Digest which is most useful to American law- 
yers. But its higher value is, that it presents in a concise, but (dear and exact form, the substance 
of American Law on the same subject. 1 know no work that vte possess, whose practical utility is 
Wtely to be so extertsively felt." "The wonder is, that the author has been able to bring so great a 
mass into so condensed a text, at once comprehensive and lucid." 

Chancellor Kent says of the work (Commentaries, voL ii, p, 635, note, 5th edition) : — " It is a work 
of great labour and intrinsic value." 

Hon. Rufus Choate savs: — "Mr. Milliard's work has been for three or four years in use, and 1 
think that Mr. Justice Story and Chancellor Kent express the general opinion of the Massachusett* 
Bar." 

Professor Greenleaf says :— " I had already found the first edition a very convenient book of refe- 
rence, and do not doubt, from the appearance of the second, that it is greatly improved." 

Professor J. H. Townsend, of Yale College, sajrs : — 

" I have been acquainted for several years with the first edition of Mr. Hilliard's Treatise, and 
have formed a very favourable opinion of it. 1 have no doubt the second edition will be found even 
more valuable than the first, and I shall be happy to recommend it as I may have opportunity. I 
know of no other work on the subject of Real Estate, so comprehensive and so well adapted to the 
itate of the law in this country." 



LEA AND BLANCHARD'S PUBLICATIONS. 



LAW BOOKS. 



ADDISON ON CONTRACTS. 



A TREATISI! 03^ TI3I!»Li\."W OP CONTRACTS AS7D 
HIG-HTS AX7D I^IABIIiITIiESS i:X COI^TKACTU. 

BY C. G. ADDISON, ESQ., 

Of the Iiiner Temple, Barrister at Law. 
In one volume, octavo, handsomely bound in law sheep. 

In this treatise upon the most constantly and frequently administered 
branch of law, the author has collected, arranged and developed in an intel- 
ligible and popular form, the rules and principles of the Lavv^ of Contracts, 
and has supported, illustrated or exemplified them by references to nearly 
four thousand adjudged cases. It comprises the Rights and Liabilities of 
Seller and Purchaser ; Landlord and Tenant ; Letter and Hirer of Chattels ; 
Borrower and Lender ; Workman and Employer ; Master, Servant and Ap- 
prentice ; Principal, Agent and Surety; Husband and Wife; Partners; 
Joint Stock Companies ; Corporations ; Trustees ; Provisional Committee- 
men ; Shipowners ; Shipmasters ; Innkeepers ; Carriers ; Infants ; Luna- 
tics, &c. 

WHEATON'S INTERNATIONAL LAW. 



BY HENRY WHEATON, LL.D., 

Minister of the United States at the Court of Russia, &c. 

THIRD EDITIOISr, REVISED AND CORRECTED. 

In one large and beautiful octavo volume of 650 pages, extra cloth, or fine law sheep. 

" Jlr. Wheaton's work is indispensable to every diplomatist, statesman and la'ivyer, and necessary 
indeed to all public men. To every philosophic and liberal mind, the study must be an attractiTe 
and ui the hands of our author it is a delightful one." — North American. 



HILL ON TRUSTEES. 



A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THE LAW RELATING TO TRL^STEES, 

THEIR POWERS, DUTIES, PRIVILEGES AND LIABILITIES. 

BY JAMES HILL, ESQ., 

Of the Inner Temple, Barrister at Law. 

EDITED BY FRANCIS J. TROUBAT, 

Of the Philadelphia Bar. 

In one large octavo volume, best law sheep, raised bands. 

" The editor begs leave to iterate the observation made by the author that the work is intended 
principally for the instruction and guidance of trustees. That single feature very much enhances 
Its practical value." 

ON THE PRINCIPLES OF CRIiVllNAL LAW. 

In one I8mo. volume, paper, price 25 cents. 
BEING PART 10, OF " SMALL BOQICS ON GREAT SUBJECTS " 



LEA AND BLANCHARD'S PUBLICATIONS. 

LAW BOOKS. 

THE EIJUITABLE JURISDICTION OF THE COURT OF CHANCERY, 

COMPRISING 

ITS RISE, PROGRESS AND FINAL ESTABLISHMENT. 

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, WITH A VIEW TO THE ELUCIDATION OF THE MAIN SUB- 
JECT, A CONCISE ACCOUNT OF THE LEADING DOCTRINES OF THE COMMON 
LAW, AND OF THE COURSE OF PROCEDURE IN THE COURTS OF COM- 
• MON LAW, WITH REGARD TO CIVIL RIGHTS; "WITH AN ATTEMPT 
TO TRACE THEM TO THEIR SOURCES; AND IN WHICH 
THE VARIOUS ALTERATIONS MADE BY THE 
LEGISLATURE DOWN TO THE PRESENT 
DAY ARE NOTICED. 

BY GEORGE SPENCE, ESQ., 

One of her Majesty 's CouiiseL 

IK TWO OCTAVO VOLUMES. 

Volume L, embracing the Pi-inciples, is now reaily. Volume II. is rapidly preparing: and will 
appear eaily in 1818. It is based \ipon the work of Mr. Haddock, brought down to tlie present 
time, and embracing: so much of the practice as counsel are called on to advise upon. 

CONTAINING EXPLANATIONS OF SUCH TECHNICAL TERMS AND PHRASES AS OCGUP 

IN THE WORKS OF LEGAL AUTHORS, IN THE PRACTICE OF THE COURTS, 

AND IN Tl-IE PARLI.AMENTARY PROCEEDINGS OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS 

AND COMMONS, TO WHICH IS ADDED, AN OUTLINE OF AN 

ACTION AT LAW AND OF A SUIT IN EQUITY. 

BV HENRY JAIYIES HOLTHOUSE, ESQ., 

Of the Inner Temple, Special Pleader. 
EDITED FROM THE SECOND AND ENLARGED LONDON EDITION, 

WITH NUMEROUS ADDITIONS, 

BY HENRY PENING-TON, 

Of the Pliiladelphia Bar. 

In one large volume, royal 12mo., of about 500 pages, double columns, handsomely 

bound in law sheep. 

" This is a consideraljle improvement upon the former editions, being bound with the usual law 
bindins, and the general execution admirable — ^the paper excellent, and the printing clear and 
beaulii'nl. Its peculiar usefulness, however, consisis in the valuable additions above referred to, 
being inielligible and well devised definitions of such phrases and technicalitias as are pecuhar to 
the practice in the Courts of this couniry. — While, therefore, we recommend it especially to the 
Ktudents of law, as a safe c;uide throu:^h the intricacies of their study, it will neverllieless be found 
a valuable acquisition to the library of the practitioner himself." — Alex. Gazette. 

" This work is intended rather for the general student, tlian as a substitute for many abridgments, 
digests, and dictionaries in use by the professional man. Its object principally is to impress accu- 
rately and distinctly upon the mind the meaning of the technical terms of the law, and as such 
can hardly fail to he generally useful. There is much curious information to be found in it in rfr- 
gard to the peculiarities of the ancient Saxon law. The additions of the Ameiican edition give 
increased value to the work-, and evince much accuracy and 'care." — Pennsylvania Law Journal. 

rs£LiriiO-a.^s ggspz cAi. J XTRisPBLTTDBag-CE. 

A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON BIEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 

BY ALFRED S. TAYLOR, 

Lecturer on MetUcal Jurisprudence and Chemistry at Guy's Hospital, London. 

With numerous Notes and Additions, and References to American Law, 

BY R. E. GRIFFITH, M.D. 

In one volume, octavo, neat law sheep. 

TATTLOH'S MAK-ITilZ. OP TOXICOZiOGV. 

IN ONE NEAT OCTAVO VOLUME. 

A KEW WOKK, XOW READY. 

OUTLINES OF A COURSE OF LECTURES ON MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 

IN ONE SMALL OCTAVO VOLUM?. 



LEA AND BLANCHARD'S PUBLICATIONS. 



LAW BOOKS. 
E A S T'S REPORTS. 



REPORTS OF CASES 

ADJUDGED AND DETERMINED IN THE COUR.T 
OF KING'S BENCH. 

WITH TABLES OF THE NAMES OF THE CASES AND PRENCrPAL MATTERS. 

BY ED-WARD HYDE EAST, ESQ., 

Of the Irmer Temple, Barrister at Law. 

-EDITED, WITH NOTES AND REFERENCES, 

BY G. M. WHARTON", ESQ., 

Of the Philadelphia Bar. 

In eight large royal octavo volumes, bound in best law sheep, raised bands and double 
titles. Price, to subscribers, only twenty-five dollars. 

In this edition of East, the sixteen volumes of the former edition have 
been compressed into eight — tvyo volumes in one throughout — but nothing 
has been omitted ; the entire work will be found, with the notes of Mr. 
Wharton added to those of Mr. Day. The great reduction of price, (from 
$72, the price of the last edition, to S25, the subscription price of this,) 
together with the improvement in appearance, will, it is trusted, procure for 
it a ready sale. 

A NEW WORK ON COURTS-MARTIAL 



A TREATISE ON AMEHICAN MILITAEY LAW, 

AND THE 

PRACTICE OF COURTS-MARTIAL, 

WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR THEIR IMPROVEMENT. 
E-y JOHN O'BRIETT, 

LIEUTENANT UNITED STATES ABTILLEET. 

In one octavo volume, extra cloth, or law sheep. 

"This work stands relatively to American Military Law in the same position that Blackstone's 
Commentaries stand to Common Law."— U. S. Gazette. 

CAIVIPBELL'S LORD CHANCELLORS. 



LIVES OF THE LORD CHANCELLORS AND KEEPERS OP 
THE GREAT SEAL OP ENGLAND, 

FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE REISN OF KING GEORGE IV., 

BY JOHN LORD CAMPBELL, A.M., F.R.S.E. 

FIRST SERXK S, 

In three neat demy octavo volumes, extra cloth, 
BRINGmG THE WORK TO THE TIME OF JAMES H., JUST ISSUED. 

PREPARING, 

SKCOSTD ss:ri£:s, 

la four volumes, to match, 
CONTAINING FROM JAMES II. TO GEORGE IV. 



LEA AND BLANCHARD'S PUBLICATIONS. 

YOUATT AND SKINNER'S 

STANOA^I WO^K M THE HORSE. 



THE HORSE. 

BY WILLIAM YOUATT. 

A NEW EDITION, WITH N tJMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS. 

TOGETHER WITH A 

GENEinAZ. HISTOnY OP THZS HORSE; 

A DISSERTATION ON 

THE AMERICAN TROTTING HORSE; 

HOW TRAINED AND JOCKEYED. 

AN ACCOUNT OF HIS REMARKABLE PERFORMANCES; 

AND 

AUt USSATT ON THH u&SS .iOTS THE m.tJl.Tl, 

BY J. S. SKINNER, 

Assistant Post-Master-General, and Editor of tiie Turf Register. 

This edition of Youatt's well-known and standard work on the Manage- 
ment, Diseases, and Treatment of the Horse, has already obtained such a 
wide circulation throughout the country, that the Publishers need say no- 
thing to attract to it the attention and confidence of all who keep Horses or 
are interested in their improvement. 

"In introducing this veiy neat edition of Youatt's well-known book, on 'The Horse,' to our 
readers, it is not necessary, even if we had time, to saj' anything to convince them of its worth ; it 
has been highly spoken of, by those most capable of appreciating its merits, and its appearance 
under the patronage of the ' Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,' with Lord Brougham 
at its head, affords a full guaranty for its high character. The book is a very valuable one, and we 
endorse the recommendation of the editor, that every man who owns the ' hair of a horse,' should 
have it at his elbow, to be consulted like a family physician, 'for mitigating the disorders, and pro- 
longing the life of the most interesting and useful of all domestic animals.' " — Fanner's Cabinet. 

" This celebrated work has been completely revised, and much of it almost entirely re-written 
by its able author, who, from bemg a practical veterinary surgeon, and withal a great lover and 
excellent judge of the animal, is particularly well qualified to write the history of the noblest of 
quadrapeds. Messrs. Lea and Blancliard of Philadelpliia have republished the above work, omitting 
a few of the first pages, and have supplied their place with matter quite as valuable, and perhaps 
more interesting to the reader in this country ; it being nearly 100 pages of a general history of the 
horse, a dissertation on the American trotting horse, how trained and jockeyed, an account of his 
remarkable performances, and an essay on the Ass and Mule, by J. S. Skinner, Esq., Assistant Post- 
jnaster-General, and late editor of the Turf Register and American Farmer. Mr. Skinner is one 
of our most pleasing writers, and has been familiar with the subject of the horse from childliood, 
and we need not add that he has acquitted himself well of the task. He also takes up the import- 
ant subject, to the American breeder, of the Ass, and the Mule. This he treats at length and con 
amove. The Philadelphia edition of the Horse is a handsome octavo, with numero'vs wood-cuts."— 
American Agriculturist. 



LEA AND BLANCHARD'S PUBLICATIONS. 



YOUATT ON THE PIG. 



THE PIG; 

A TREATISE ON THE BREEDS, MANAGEMENT, FEEDING, 
AND MEDICAL TREATMENT OF SWINE, 

WITH DIRECTIONS FOK SALTING PORK, AND CURING BACON AND HAMS. 
BY WILLIAM YOUATT, V.S. 

Author of "The Horse," "The Dog," "Cattle," " Sheep," &c., Sec. 

ILLrsTKATED WITH ENGRAVINGS DKAWN FROM LIFE BY WILLIAM HARVEY. 

In one handsome duodecimo volume, extra cloth, or in neat paper cover, price 50 cents. 
This vsrork, on a subject comparatively neglected, must prove of much use to farmers, especially 
in this country, where the Pig is an animal of more importance than elsewhere. No work has 
hitherto appeared treating fully of the various breeds of swine, their diseases and cure, breeding, 
fattening, &;c., and the preparation of bacon, salt pork, hams. &c., while the name of the author of 
" The Horse," " The Cattle Doctor," Sic., is sufficient authority for all he may state. To render it 
more accessible to those whom it particularly interests, the publishers have prepared copies in 
neat illustrated paper covers, suitable for transmission by mail ; and which will be sent through 
the post-office on the receipt of fifty cents, free of postage. 

CLATER AND YOUATT'S CATTLE DOCTOR. 



EVERY IAN HIS OWN CATTLE DOCTOR: 

CONTAINING THE CAUSES, SYMPTOMS AND TREATMENT OF ALL 
DISEASES INCIDENT TO OXEN, SHEEP AND SWINE; 

AND A SKETCH OF THE 

ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF NEAT CATTLE. 

BY FRANCIS CLATER. 

EDITED, REVISED AND ALMOST RE-WRITTEN, BT 

WILLIAM YOUATT, AUTHOR OP " THE HORSE." 

WITH NUMEROUS ADDITIONS, 

EMBRACING AN ESSAY ON THE USE OF OXEN AND THE IMPROVEMENT IN THE 

BREED OF SHEEP, 

BIT J. S. SKXITSTER. 

WITH NUMEROUS CUTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
In one 12mo. volume, cloth. 
" As its title would import, it is a most valuable work, and should be in the hands of every Ame- 
rican farmer ; and we feel proud in saying, that the value of the work has been greatly enhanced 
by the contributions of Mr. Skinner. Clater and Youatt are names treasured by the farming com- 
munities of Europe as household-gods ; nor does that of Skinner deserve to be less esteemed ia 
America." — American Farmer. 



CLATER'S FARRIER. 



EVERY MAN HIS OWN FARRIER: 

CONTAINING THE CAUSES, SYMPTOMS, AND MOST APPROVED METHODS OF CURB 
OF THE DISEASES OF HORSES. 

Author of " Every Man his-own Cattle Doctor," 

AND HIS SON, JOHN CLATER. 

FIRST AMERICAN FROM THE TWENTY-EIGHTH LONDON EDITION. 

WITH NOTES AND ADDITIONS, 

B'2' J. S. S K £ XT 3Sri; 3Et. 

In one 12ino. volume, cloth. 



LEA AND BLANCHARD'S PUBLICATIONS, 

HAWKER AND P ORTER ON SHOOTING. 

INSTRUCTIONS TO YOUNG SPORTSMEN 

IN ALL THAT RELATES TO GUNS AND SHOOTING. 
BY LIEUT. COL. P. HA-WKER. 

FROM THE ENLARGED AND IMPROVED NINTH LONDON EDITION, 

TO WHtCH IS ADDED THE HUNTING AND SHOOTING OF NORTH AMERTCA, WITH 

DESCRIPTIONS OF ANIMALS AND BIRDS. CAREFULLY COLLATED 

FROM AUTHENTIC SOURCES. 

BY W. T. PORTER, ESQ,* 

EDITOR OF THE N. Y. SPIRIT OF THE TIMES. 

In one large octavo volume, rich extra clolh, with numerous Illustrations. 

" Here is a book, a hand-book, or rather a text-book — one that contains the whole routine of the 
science. It is the Primer, the Lexicon, and the Homer. Everything is here, from the minutest 
portion of a gTin-lock, to a dead Baffalo. The sportsman who reads this book understandintrly, may 
pass an examination. He will know the science, and may give advice to others. Every sportsman, 
and sportsmen are plentiful, should own this work. It should be a " vade mecum." He should 
be examined on its contents, and estimated by his abilities to answer. We have not been without 
treatises on the art, but hitherto they have not descended into all the minutiaa of equipments and 
qualifications to proceed to the completion. This work supplies deficiencies, and completes the 
sportsman's library." — U. S. Gazette. 

" No man in the country that we %vot of is so well calculated as our friend of the ' Spirit' for ths 
task he has undertaken, and the result of his labours has been that he has turned out a work which 
should be in the haiids of every man in the land who owns a double-barrelled gun." — N. O. Picayune. 

" A volume splendidly printed and bound, and embelhshed with numerous beautiful engravings, 
which will doubtless be in great demand. No sportsman, indeed, ought to be without it, while the 
general reader will find in its pages a fund of curious and useful information." — BicJtmond, Wtag. 



TUS DOG-, 

BY WILLIAM YOUATT, 

Author of " The Horse," itc. 

WITH NUMEROUS AND BEAUTIFUL ILLUSTRATIONS. 

EDITED BY E. J. LEWIS, M.D. &c. &c. 

In one beautifully printed volume, crown octavo. 

LIST OF PLATES. 

Head of Bloodhound— Ancient Greyhounds— The Thibei Dog— The Dingo, or New Holland Dog>— 

The Danish or Dalmatian Dog — The Hare Indian Dog — The Greyhound — ^The Grecian Greyhound 

—Blenheims and Cockers — The Water Spaniel — The Poodle — The Alpine Spaniel Or Bemardine 

Dog — The Newfoundland Dog — The Esquimaux Dog — The English Sheep Dog — The Scotch Sheep 

Dog — The Beagle — The Harrier — The Foxhound — Plan of Goodwood Kennel — The Southern 

Hound— The Setter— The Pointer— The Bull Dog— The Mastiff— The Terrier— Skeleton of thn 

Dog — Teethjjf the Dog at seven different ages. 

" Mr. Youalt's work is invaluable to the student of canine history; it Is full of entertaining ani 
instructive matter for the general reader. To the sportsman it commends itself by the large amount 
of useful information in reference to his pecuhar pursuits which it embodies — ^information which 
he cannot find elsewhere in so convenient and accessible a form, and with so reliable an authority 
to entitle it to his consideration. The modest preface which Dr. Lewis has made to the American 
edition of this work scarcely does justice to the additional value he has imparted to it ; and the 
publishers are entitled to great credit for the handsome manner in which they have got it up."— 
tiorth American. 

THS SPORTSiyiiLN'S Z.ZBBJLR'S', 

OR HINTS ON HUNTERS, HUNTING, HOUNDS, SHOOTING, GAME, DOGS, GUNS, 

FISHING, COURSING, &c., &c. 

BY JOHN MILLS, ESQ., 

Author of " The Old English Gentleman," etc. 

In one well printed royal duodecimo volume, extra cloth. 

ST.A.BZiX: TiLZiK JV3TZ> T/)lBIiE TiA.ZiS, 

OR SPECTACLES FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 

BY HARRY HIEOVER. 

In one very neat duodecimo volume, extra clolh. 

" These lively sketches answer to their title very well. Wherever Nimrod is welcome, there 

shoiild be cordial greeting for Harry Hieover. His book is a very clever one, and contains many 

instructive hints, as well as much light-hearted reading." — Examiner. 

TKE DOG jslstd thi: SPORTSiaJVXr, 

EJfBRAClNG THE USES, BREEDING, TRAINING, DISEASES, ETC., OF DOGS. AND AN 

ACCOUNT OF THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF GAME, WITH THEIR HABITS. 

AlsO} Hints to Sbooters, ivlth -varions useful Recipes^ &c>} &o* 

BY J. S. SKINNER. 

With Plates. In one very neat 12mo. volume, Mtra clt/th. 



# 



LEA AND BLANCHARD'S PUBLICATIONS. 

FRANCATELLI'S iVlO DERN FRENCH COOKERY. 

THEMODERNCOOK, 

A PRACTICAL GtnCE TO THE CULINARY ART, IN ALL ITS BRANCHES, ADAPTED AS 

WELL FOR THE LARGEST ESTABLISHMENTS AS FOR THE USE 

OF PRIVATE FAMILIES. 

BY CHARLES ELME FRANCATELLI, 

Pupil of the celebrated Careme, and late Maitre D'Hotel and Chief Cook to her Majesty the Queen. 
In one large octavo volume, extra cloth, with numerous illustrations. 

" It appears to be tlie book of books on cookery, being a most comprehensive treatise on that art 
preservative and conservative. The work comprises, in one large and elegant octavo volume, 1447 
recipes for cooking dishes and desserts, with numerous illustrations ; also bills of fare and direc- 
tions for dinners for every montli in the year, for companies of six persons to twenty-eight. — NaU 
Intelligencer. 

" The ladies who read our Magazine, will thank us for calUng attention to this great work on the 
noble science of cooking, in which everybody, who has any taste, feels a deep and abiding interest. 
Francatelli is the Plato, the Shakspeare, or the Napoleon of his department; or perhaps the La 
Place, for his performance bears the same rehiriou to ordinary cook books that ttie Jlecanique 
Celeste does to DaboU's Arithmetic. It is a large octavo, profusely illustrated, and contains every- 
thing on the philosopliy of making dinners, suppers, etc., that is worth knowing. — Graham's Magazine. 

¥iiricl wsT oiK¥H^ 

■ ' MOBSnM COOKSSHIT £^ JkZ.£. ITS BRiLNCSBSy 

REDUCED TO A SYSTEM OF EASY PRACTICE. FOR THE USE OF PRIVATE FAMILIEa 

IN A SERIES OF PRACTICAL RECEIPTS. ALL OF WHICH ARE GIVEN 

WITH THE MOST MINUTE EXACTNESS. 

BY KlilZA ACTON. 

WITH NUMEKOXJS WOOD-CUT ILLUSTRATIONS. 
TO WHICH IS ADDED, A TABLE OP WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 

THE WHOLE REVISED AND PREPARED FOR AMERICAN HOUSEKEEPERS. 

' BY MRS. SARAH J. HALE. 

From the Second London Edition. In one large 12mo. volume. 

"Miss Eliza Acton may congratulate herself on having composed a work of great utihty, and one 
that is speedily finding its way to every ' dresser' in the kingdom. Her Cookery-book is miques- 
tionably the most valuable compendium of the art that has yet been published. It strongly incul- 
cates economical principles, and points out how good things may be concocted without that reck- 
less extravagance which good cooks have been wont to imagine the best evidence they can give of 
skill in their profession." — Ziondon Morning Post. 

PLAIN AND PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS FOR COOKING AND HOUSEKEEPING, 

■WITH UP"WARDS OF SEVEN HUNDRED RECEIPTS, 

Consisthig of Directions for the Choice of JHeat and Poultry, Preparations for Cooking; Making of 

Broths and Soups ; Boihng, Roasting, Baking and Frying of Meats, Fish, &.c. ; Seasonings, 

Colorings, Cooking Vegetables; Preparing Salads ; Clarifying; Making of Pastry, 

Puddings, Gruels, Gravies, Garnishes, &c., &c., and with general 

Directions for making Wines. 

WITH ADDITIONS AND ALTERATIONS. 

BY J. M. SANDERSON, 

OF THE FRANKLIN HOUSE. 

In one small volume, paper. Price only Twenty-five Cents. 

THE COMPLEtTcONFECTIQN ^^ BAKER. 

PLAIN AND PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS 

FOR MAKING CONFECTIONARY AND PASTRY, AND FOR BAKING. 

"WITH UP^WARDS OP FIVE HUNDRED RECEIPTS, 

Consisting of Directions for maldng all sorts of Preserves, Sugar BoiUng, Comfits, Lozenges, 

Ornamental Cakes,' Ices, Liqueurs, Waters, Gum Paste Ornaments, Syrups, Jellies, 

Marmalades, Compotes, Bread Baking, Artificial Yeasts, Fancy 

Biscuits, Cakes, Rolls, Muffins, Tarts, Pies, <i;c., &c. 

WITH ADDITIONS AND ALTERATIONS. 

BY PARKINSON, 

PRACTICAL CONFECTIONER, CHESTNUT STREET. 

In one small volume, paper. Price only Twenty-five Gents. 



LEA AND BLANCHARD'S PUBLICATIONS. 

SMALL BOOKS ON GREAT SUBJECTS. 

A SERIES OF ■WORKS 

WHICH DESERVE THE ATTENTION OF THE PUBLIC, FROM THE VARIETY AND 

IMPORTANCE OP THEIR SUBJECTS, AND THE CONCISENESS AND 

STRENGTH WITH WHICH THEY ARE WRITTEN. 

They form a neat 18mo. series, in paper, or strongly done up in three neat volumes, extra cloth. 

THERE ARE ALREADY PUBLISHED, 
No. 1.— PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES AND PHILOSOPHICAL EXPERIENCE. 

2.— ON THE CONNEXION BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGY AND INTELLECTUAL SCIENCE. 
3.— ON MAN'S POWER OVER HIMSELF, TO PREVENT OR CONTROL INSANITY. 
4.— AN INTRODUCTION TO PRACTICAL ORGANIC CHEMISTRY, WITH REFER- 
ENCES TO THE WORKS OF DAVY, BRANDE, LIEBIG, &o. 
5.— A BRIEF VIEW OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY UP TO THE AGE OF PERICLES. 
6.— GREEK PHILOSOPHY FROM THE AGE OF SOCRATES TQ THE COMING OP 

CHRIST. 
7.— CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 
8.— AN EXPOSITION OF VULGAR AND COMMON ERRORS, ADAPTED TO THE YEAR 

OF GRACE MDCCCXLV. 
9.— AN INTRODUCTION TO VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY, WITH REFERENCES TO 

THE WORKS OF DE CANDOLLE, LINDLEY, &c. 
lO.-ON THE PRINCIPLES OF CRIMINAL LAW. 
11.— CHRISTIAN SECTS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTttRY. 
12.— THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF GRAMMAR. 
" We are glad to find that Messrs. Lea &. Blanchard are reprinting, for a quarter of their original 
price, this admirable series of httle boolvs, which have justly attracted so much attention in Great 
Britain."— Graftam's Magazine. 

"The writers of these thoughtful treatises are not labourers for hire ; they are men who have 
stood apart from the throng, and marked the movements of the crowd, the tendencies of society, 
its evils and its errors, and, meditating upon them, have^iven their thoughts to the thoughtful."— 
London Critic. 

"A series of little volumes, whose worth is not at all to be estimated by their size or price. They 
are written iu England by scholars of eminent abihty, whose design is to call the attention of tlie 
public to various important topics, in a novel and accessible mode of publication." — N. Y. Morning 
Neujs. 

MACKINTOSH'S DISSERTATION ON THE PROGRESS 
OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY, 

WITH A PREFACE BY 

THE REV. WILLIAM WHEWELL, M. A. 
In one neat 8vo. vol., extra cloth. 

OVERLAND JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD, 

DURING THE YEARS 1841 AND 1842, 
BY SIR GEORGE SIMPSON, 

GOYEKNOR-IN-CHIEF OF THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY'S TERRITORIES. 
In one very neat crown octavo volume, rich extra crimson cloth, or in two 
parts, paper, price 75 cents each. 
"A more valuable or instructive work, or one more full of perilous adventure and heroic enter- 
prise, we have never met with." — John Bull. 

" It abounds with details of the deepest interest, possesses all the charms of an exciting romance 
and f'u-irishcB an immense mass of valuable information."— 7»a«ircr. 



LEA AND BLANCHARD'S PUBLICATIONS. 

UNITED STATES EXPLOR ING EXPEDITION. 

THE NARRATIVE OF THE 

UNITED STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION, 

DURING THE YEARS 1838, '39, MO, 41, AND '42. 
BY CHAKI.es WIIrKES, ESQ,., U. S. W. 

COMMANDER OF THE EXPEDITION. ETC. 

PRICE TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS. 
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Hundred Splendid Engravings on Wood. 
PRICE ONL"? T'WO DOLLARS A VOLUIVEE. 

Thoujh offered at a price so low, this is the complete work, containing all the letter-press of the 
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The attention of persons forming libraries is especially directed to this work, as presenting the 
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SCHOOL and other PUBLIC LIBRARIES should not be without it. as embodying the results of 
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"We have no hesitation in saying that it is destined to stand among the most enduring monu- 
ments of our national literature. Its contributions not only to every department of science, but 
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JUST ISSUED, 

THE ETHNOGRAPHY AND PHILOLOGY OF THE UNITED 
STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION, 

UNDER TILE COILMAND OF CHARLES WILICES, ESQ., U. S. NAVY. 
BY HORATIO HALE, 

PHILOLOGIST TO THE j:XPEDIT10N. 

in one large imperial octavo volume of nearly seven hundred pages. Wi^h two Maps, printed to 
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Price TEN DOLLARS, jn beautiful extra cloth, done up with great strength. 

•»* This is the only edition printed, and but few are offered for sale. 

The remainder of the scientific works of the Expedition are in a state of rapid progress. Th9 
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DON QUIXOTE-ILLUSTRATED EDITION. 

NEARLY READY. 



DON QUIXOTE DE LA MANCHA, 

TRAlfSLATED FROM THE SPAJUSH OF 

MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA 

BV CHARLES JARVIS, ESQ. 

CAREFULLY REAISED AXD COKRECTED, U'lTH A jrEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR AND 
NOTICE OF HIS WOKKS. 

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS, 

BY TONY JOHANNOT. 
In two beautifully printed volumes, crown octavo, rich extra crimson cloth; 



r>, M 



tMS^l 







The publishers are happy in presenMn°: to the admirers nf Don Quixote an edition of that work 
in some ilegree worthy of its reputation and popularity. I'he want of such a one has long been felt 
in this country, and in presenting this, they have only to e?:press their hope that it may meet the 
numerous demands and inquiries. The translation is that by Jarvis, which is acknowledeed supe- 
rior in hoth force and fideUty to all others. It has in some few instances been slightly altered to adapt 
it better to modem readers, or occasionally to suit it to the inimitable designs of Tony Johannot. 
These latter are admitted to be the only successful pictorial exponents of the wit and humor ot 
Cervantes, and a choice selection of them have been engraved in the best manner. A copious 
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PICCIOLA, THE PRISONER OF FENESTRELLA; 

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" Perhaps the most beautiful and touching vrork of fiction ever written, with the exception of 
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Paul and Virginia, and we believe it is destined to surpass that popular work of St. Pierre in popu- 
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charms in which Paul and Virginia is deficient. St. Pierre's work derived its popularity from its 
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many for its merit." — Lady's Booh. 

" Tills is a little gem of its kind — a beautiful conceit, beautifully unfolded and applied. The style 
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and beautiful in moral as Picciola." — Neio York Review. 

" The present edition is got up in beautiful style, with illustrations, and reflects credit upon the 
publishers. We recommend to those of our readers who were not fortunate enough to meet with 
Picciola some years ago, when it was first translated, and for a season all the rage, to lose no time 
in procuring it now — and to those wlw read it then, but do not possess a copy, to embrace the op- 
portunity of supplying tliemselves from the present very excellent edition." — Saturday Evening I'ost. 

" A new edition of this exquisite story has recently been issued by Messrs. Lea Sc Blanchard, 
embellished and illustrated in the most elegant manner. We understand that the work was com- 
pletely out of print, and a new edition will then be welcomed. It contains a dehghtful letter from 
the author, giving a painful insight into the personal history of the characters who figure isi the 
story." — Evtnuio Bulletin. 

"The most charming work we have read for many a day." — Richmond Enquirer. 

LOVER'S RORY O'MORE. ' 

Ron's" 0»EEOItE-.iL l^ATKOl^Ikli HO'SKIkNGB, 

BY SAMUEL LOVER. 
A new and cheap edition, with Illustrations by the Author. Price only 25 cents. 
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"A truly Irish, national, and characteristic story." — London Literary Gazette. 
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part from him with regret." — London Sun. 

LOVER'S IRISH STORIES. 



LEGHl^DS JL^I3 STORIES OP XI^iSIii^Si'B, 

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BIOGRAPHY AND POETICAL REMAINS 

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POETICAL REMAINS 

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COLLECTED AND AiOlANGED BY HER MOTHER, WITH A BIOGRAPHY BY 
MISS SEDGWICK. 

A NEW EDITION, REVISED. 

SELECTIONS FROM THE . 

WRITINGS OF MRS. MARGARET M. DAVIDSON, 

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WITH A PREFACE BY MISS SEDGWICK. 
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THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS, 

WITH ILLUSTRATIVE POETRY; TO WHICH ARE NOW ADDED THE 
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SEVENTH AMERICAN, FROM THE NINTH LONDON EDITION. 

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CAMPBELL'S POETICAL WORKS, 

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KEBLE'S CHRISTIAN YEAR, 

EDITED BY THE RIGHT REV. BISHOP DOANE. 

Jliniature Edition, in 32mo., extra cloth, with Illuminated Title. 

RELIGIO MEDICI, AND ITS SEQUEL, CHRISTIAN MORALS, 

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DICKENS'S WORKS. 

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comprising: 

the spy— the waterwitch—heidenimauer— precaution— homeward bound 
—home as found— the last of the mohicans— the headsman— the two 
admirals— the piomeers— the pilot— lionel lincoln— the pathi'inder— 
the wish-ton-wish— mercedes of castile— the monikins— the bravo— 
the deerslayer— the prairie— the red rover— wing and wing— wyan- 
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ALSO, NED MYERS ; OR, A LIFE BEFORE THE MAST, 

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BOY'S TREA SURY OF SPORTS. 

THE BOrS TREASURY OF SPORTS, PASTIMES AND RECREATIONS. 

WITH FOUR HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS, 
BY SAlVIUEIi ■WMLLIAIMS. 

IS NOW READY. 

In one very neat volume, bound in extra crimson cloth; handsomely printed and 

illustrated with engravings in the first style of art, and containing 

about six hundred and fifty articles. A presenj for all seasons. 




PHEPACE. 

This illustrated Manual of" Sports, Pastimes, and Recreations," has been prepared with especial 
regard to the Health, Exercise, and Rational Enjoyment of the j'oung readers to whom it is ad- 
dressed. 

Every variety of commendable Recreation will be found in the foUowin? pages. First, yon have 
the little Toys of the Nurseiy ; the Tops and Marbles of the Play-ground ; and the Balls of the 
Play-room, or the smooth Lawn. 

Then, you have a number of Pastimes that serve to gladden the fireside ; to light up many faces 
right joyfully, and make the parlour re-echo with mirth. 

Next, come the Exercising Sports of tlie Field, the Green, and the Play-ground ; followed by 
the noble and truly English game of Cricket. 

Gymnastics are next admitted ; then, the delightful recreation of Swimming ; and the healthful 
sport of Skating. 

Archery, once the pride of England, is then detailed ; and very properly followed by Instructions 
in the graceful acconipUshment of Fencing, and the manly and erilivening exercise of Riding. 

Angling, the pastime of childhood, boyhood, manhood, and old age, is next described ; and by 
attention to the instructions here laid down, the lad with a stick and a string may soon become an 
expert Angler. 

Keeping Animals is a favourite pursuit of boyhood. Accordingly, we have described how to rear 
the Rabbit, the Squirrel, the Dormouse, the Guinea Pig, the Pigeon, and the Silkworm. A long 
chapter is adapted to the rearing of Song Birds ; the several varieties of which, and their respective 
cages, are next described. And here we may hint, that kindness to Animals invariably denotes an 
excellent dispositioa", for, to pet a little creature one hour, and to treat it harshly the next, marks 
a capricious if not a cruel temper. Humanity is a jewel, wliich every boy should be proud to wear 
in his breast. 

We now approach the more sedate amusements — as Draughts and Chess ; two of the noblest 
exercises of the ingenuity of the human mind. Dominoes and Bagatelle follow. With a know- 
ledge of these four games, who would pass a duU hour in the dreariest day of winter; or who 
would sit idly by the fire 1 

Amusements m Arithmetic, harmless Legerdemain, or sleight-of-hand, and Tricks vrith Cards, 
will delight many a family circle, when the business of the day is over, and the book is laid aside. 

Although the pi-esent volume is a book of amusements, Science has not been excluded from its 
pages. And why should it be ? when Science is as entertaining as a fairy tale. The changes we 
read of in little nursery-books are not more amusing than the changes in Chemistry, Optics, Elec- 
tricity, Magnetism, &c. By understanding these, you may almost become a little Magician. 

Toy Balloons and Paper Fireworks, (or Fireworks without Fire,) come next. Then foUow In- 
structions for Mooeiling in Card-Board ; so that you may hudd for yourself a palace or a carriage, 
and, in short, make for yourself a little paper world. 

Puzzles and Paradoxes, Enigmas and Riddles, and Talking with the Fingers, next make up plenty 
of exercise for " Guess," and " Guess again." And as you have the " Keys" in your own hand, you 
may keep your friends in suspense, and make yourseu as mysterious as the Sphynx. 

A chapter of Miscellanies — useful and amusing secrets — winds up the volume. 

The " Treasury" contains upwards of four hundred Engravings ; so that it is not only a collection 
of " .secrets wortli knowing," but it is a book of pictures, as full of prints as a Christinas pudding 
is of plums. 

It maybe as well to mention that the " Treasury" holds many new games that have never 
before been printed in a book of tliis kind. The old games have been described afresh. Thus it 
is, altogether, a new book. 

And iiow we take leave, wishing you many hours, and days, and weeks of enjoyment over these 
pages; and we hope that you may be as happy as this book is brimful of amusGiiieiit, 



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